Nyusi calls on foreign investors to trust Mozambique

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Nyusi calls on foreign investors to trust Mozambique

11:43 CAT | 15 Jun 2017

Folha de Maputo (Fie photo) / President Filipe Nyusi

The President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, yesterday called on foreign investors to have confidence in a resumption of the country’s economic growth, saying Mozambique is safe for foreign capital.

Speaking at the 11th US-Africa Business Biennial in Washington and quoted by the Mozambican Information Agency (AIM), the president said: “Today we have come to say: Mozambique is back as a country with a prosperous economy.”

The head of state was in the United States on a three-day official visit.

Nyusi pointed to the US$8 billion venture by a consortium led by Italian oil company Eni in the first natural gas exploration project in the Rovuma Basin as a sign that the country is safe to invest in.

He invited investors to look at other sectors of activity, such as agriculture, infrastructure and industrial production, also.

“Foreign investments are safe,” he said, pointing to the restoration of peace and political stability through negotiations with Renamo as one way Mozambique was guaranteeing stabililty for foreign capital and overcome its financial crisis.

Nyusi said that the US may become, in the coming years, the largest single investor in Mozambique.

“They are transformational investments in the structure of the Mozambican economy, making a dramatic turnaround in the history of Mozambique and its relations with the United States,” he said.

Anadarko is leading a consortium that has identified large quantities of natural gas in the Rovuma basin in northern Mozambique, while another US company, Exxon Mobil, has bought 25 percent of Eni East Africa, which leads the consortium which this month entered the development phase of the Coral Sul project.

Liquefied natural gas export from this project has now entered its countdown phase and is expected to start in 2022.

A source from the US embassy in Maputo told Lusa in April that US investment in the sector in Mozambique could amount to between EUR 23 and 25.7 billion, taking the country to the top of US investment destinations in Africa.

The International Energy Agency estimated two years ago that Mozambique would receive EUR 91 billion between 2020 and 2040 in revenues from natural resources.

Source: Lusa