EU aid to boost Mozambique’s business environment

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EU aid to boost Mozambique’s business environment

2:09 CAT | 24 Feb 2016

EU and Mozambique have reached an agreement that will allow Mozambique to export all its products to Europe without custom taxes and import 70 percent on the same basis. At the same time, financial support for implementing the agreement into force was announced.

The announcement was made on Tuesday in Maputo, and the agreement will be signed in June.

European Union head of economic development and governance, Gerts Ankert, said that this agreement “on the one hand, opens all doors and offers a hundred percent liberalization to all goods exported to Europe. On the other hand, it agrees that Mozambique will remove duties on 70 percent of its imports from Europe.”

Talking about the advantages of the agreement, the Mozambican Ministry of Industry’s Maria Albertina Gomes said: “We will have an open market in the EU for products that we produce. We want to diversify products here in Mozambique, through the import of EU products, and we have the raw materials that we import from the EU for our industry.”

The European Union also announced that it will grant aid worth 1.2 million euros to Mozambique to facilitate the implementation of the agreement. According to Gerts Ankert: “This amount is for the preparation of all units and people involved in the preparation of the economic partnership.”

Maria Albertina Gomes says she recognizes that Mozambique is facing “a challenge”. “We cannot say that we are prepared, or equals.”

The EU ambassador to Mozambique, Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, said that Mozambique continues to register an economic growth and create opportunities for entrepreneurs, and that this agreement will enhance business relations between the two parties and contribute to the strengthening of the Mozambican economy.

“This initiative will create ways for the parties to exchange experience at all levels,” said von Burgsdorff, inviting the Mozambican private sector to “make the most of this initiative”.

The announcement was made during a seminar on the EU-Mozambique economic partnership agreements held on Tuesday in Maputo. The meeting discussed relations between Mozambique and the European Union on the eve of a two-day visit by High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, which starts today Wednesday February 24.

Source: DW Moçambique