Mozambique: Top taxpayers in 2024
Mozambique: Chapo launches “National Petrochemical City” – AIM report
7:15 CAT | 18 Apr 2025
Photo: Governo do Distrito de Vilankulo
Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on Thursday launched a project to build a “National Petrochemical City” in the Mavanza village of Vilankulo district, in the southern province of Inhambane.
The project, budgeted at two billion US dollars, will be built by the Hong Kong-based Phoenix International Group, and should be completed by 2028. It will have the capacity to produce more than a million tonnes of petro-chemical products a year. This is intended to create jobs and drive industrial development.
The industrial infrastructure includes thermal power stations, oceanic terminals, treatment stations, and units to produce all manner of polymers. The project also includes a residential area with schools for the workers’ childen, hospitals equipped with state-of-the-art technology, and shopping centres.
Chapo told the inauguration ceremony that the industries installed will obey high environmental standards. The project will also transform natural resources, including the more than 200 square kilometres of salt pans in the area.
Chapo expected exports from the new complex to include ammonia, urea, chlorine, fertilisers and industrial salt. “These are products of great value that will lever industry, agriculture and other important sectors of our economy”, he said.
A refinery will be installed, he added, which would stimulate the petrochemical and energy potential of the country. Chapo believed this will turn Mozambique into a reference point for the petrochemical industry in Africa.
The President added that 4,300 direct and 5,000 indirect jobs will be created.
Some of the workers concerned are already working on the project. “They have begun to work on the machines that are already here, and certainly within a few days more Mozambicans will be working here”, said the President.
Chapo was confident that the Mozambican and Chinese workers on the projects will learn each other’s languages. “I am sure that these Mozambicans will speak Mandarin, and from what I have seen here, these Chinese will speak Xitswa (one of the main languages spoken in Inhambane province) without any problems”, said Chapo.
He added that the project will promote technical and professional training for the young people of Mavanza, so that in the coming years they can occupy the most senior posts in the factory.
Chapo said that about 100 young Mozambicans will immediately obtain scholarships to study abroad so that when they return, in four or five years, they will occupy management and leadership positions in the petrochemical complex.
Source: AIM
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