Maputo, 20 Jun (AIM) – Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on Thursday called on young Mozambicans to embrace the challenge of laying the foundations for the transformation of the Mozambican economy over the next 50 years.
He was speaking in Maputo at the start of a conference entitled “Economic independence: 50 Years of Freedom, 50 Years of Opportunities”.
Chapo told young Mozambicans “Your role is essential for the economic transformation we want. We mean that you are not just the beneficiaries of public policies, but strategic actors of change for the future of our Mozambique”.
He told Mozambican youths that, as the first step towards gaining economic liberation, they should learn from the experience of their elders, which is making room for changing the country for the better in the coming 50 years.
He called on his young listeners to bank on the entrepreneurial spirit and accept the task of creating jobs for other young Mozambicans. An entrepreneur, he said, is someone who stimulates local value chains and proves that it is possible to do things differently.
They should not wait for ideal conditions, because there will never be a completely ideal environment. “We all have to fight together in permanent dialogue between the public and private sectors, in order to create a favourable environment”, Chapo said.
“Your compass”, he continued, “should be innovation, added value and smart import substitution. As the public sector, it is our responsibility to listen to the private sector”.
The President wanted all citizens to take part in the battle for economic independence. “Nobody should be excluded from this boat”, he said.
He urged young people to take part in the inclusive national dialogue which he had launched in March. “Bring your voices, bring your ideas”, he said. “The economic future of Mozambique is also built in your interventions. Let’s not waste the historic opportunity we have”.
The theme of the conference, Chapo stressed, is an invitation to young people to recognise that economic independence will not result automatically from the passage of time, but from the capacity of youths to intervene in the economy.
“Whether in the public or the private sector”, he added, “we must together do something so that results appear, in the mobilisation of national and foreign investment, in planning, in leadership and in national cohesion, notably in holding conferences such as this, where we must debate everything that obstructs our growth and our economic development”.
Chapo told his audience that the government is working “24 hours a day”, to ensure the resumption of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, headed by the French company TotalEnergies, in Palma district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
The fact that the US Exim Bank recently approved investment of five billion dollars in the TotalEnergies project, said the President, is clear evidence that the trust of foreign investors has been re-established.
The government, he added, is now working continually to ensure that the declaration of force majeure, made in 2021, is lifted so that work can resume. TotalEnergies declared force majeure because of a major attack by Islamist terrorists against the town of Palma in March 2021. Security conditions have improved since then, and the government hopes this will be enough to lift the force majeure.
Other LNG projects were pressing ahead: Chapo said the government has approved the plans by the Italian energy company, ENI, for a second LNG floating platform, Coral Norte. The first such platform, Coral Sul, has been producing and exporting LNG since 2022.
He hoped that, in the near future, the largest LNG project so far, headed by the American company Exxon Mobil, will receive the go-ahead. This project involves investment of about 20 billion US dollars.
(AIM)
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