Mozambique: Sugar exports see 50% rise, generating US$36 million in 2024
Agriculture in the spotlight as Italy’s Ambassador to Mozambique visits Manica province
10:47 CAT | 30 May 2025
Photo: Conselho Executivo Provincial de Manica
An official visit to the Mozambican province of Manica saw the Italian ambassador to Mozambique, Gabriele Annis, accompanied by the director of the Maputo office of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Paolo Sertoli, and the president of the Mozambique-Italy Chamber of Commerce, Simone Santi, from 26 to 28 May 2025: this was announced in a communiqué from the Italian Embassy in Maputo, stressing that the mission was aimed at a reconnaissance of Italian cooperation projects within the framework of the Mattei Plan for Africa.
The province of Manica is a priority for Italian activities in the agricultural sector in Mozambique, and projects totalling around EUR 100 million are underway and in the start-up phase, the communiqué continued.
The main one of these is the Manica Agri-Food Centre (Caam), designed using the best Italian practices in the sector as a model and which will be dedicated to the processing, preservation and packaging of the entire province’s production, adding value to it. During the visit, Ambassador Annis met with Governor Francisca Tomas, the mayor of the city of Chimoio João Ferreira, and other local authorities, all of whom agreed on the great potential of Caam in terms of transforming Manica’s agricultural sector into an agro-industry. The local authorities have high expectations of the positive spin-offs of the Caam and related projects, reports the note.
The Caam is in the start-up phase: in fact, Aics Maputo is about to publish the call for tenders for the design of the infrastructure that will be built on land, identified during the ambassador’s visit, near the airport, so as to facilitate the shipment of products. In addition to the fulfilments related to the Caam, the ambassador also inaugurated the launch of important projects related to it, such as the premises for the aggregation and storage of products of the Barué fruit cooperative. The ambassador also participated in the ceremony of handing over cheques under the ‘Manica para as Mulheres’ micro-credit programme to small agricultural entrepreneurs, according to the press release.
Other Caam-related projects visited by the ambassador were the vegetable-growing schools under the Prodai initiative, run by the FAO and with funding from Italian Cooperation, and the ‘Mais Valor’ project, implemented by Unido, again with Italian funding, and which aims to develop female entrepreneurship within the new coffee value chains.
An innovative aspect of the mission to the Manica province was the presence in the delegation of the president of the Italian-Mozambican Chamber of Commerce, Simone Santi, and the associated company Agrovida.
‘The participation of the Chamber – and in the future also of ICE – aims at implementing one of the main features of the new Mattei Plan approach, namely systemic action also through the involvement of the private sector in cooperation projects, thus emphasising their future sustainability and enabling companies to identify the business opportunities arising from them,’ said Ambassador Annis.
As a confirmation of the new approach, one of the main events of the mission was a networking meeting with the business community in Manica. The event, organised by the local industrial federation, allowed the Italian delegation to provide a detailed briefing on the Caam project, as well as to hope for the full involvement of local companies in the project phase. The event was particularly appreciated by local entrepreneurs, who agreed that their involvement in the project, and even more so in its management, was essential, as the communiqué highlights.
“The next system mission to Manica will take place between September and October and will see us expand even further the number of companies accompanying us, inaugurate further Caam-related projects, and of course assess jointly with the Mozambican authorities the progress of the centre and the other initiatives of our cooperation,” Ambassador Annis said.
Source: ANSA
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