Mozambique: CTA urges the State to settle outstanding invoices - around $400M worth
Photo: Notícias
Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario stressed that ensuring a higher percentage of local content in goods produced in Mozambique remains a priority in the government’s drive to improve the business environment.
Speaking in Maputo on Friday at the sixth meeting of the council set up between the government and the private sector to monitor the business environment, Rosario stressed that the government is also determined to continue fighting acts of corruption, bearing in mind their negative impact on the business environment.
“We are continuing to work with the private sector in order to draft a legal instrument on national content which reflects the current dynamics of the national and international markets and which contributes to improving the business environment”, said the Prime Minister.
He added that the government is counting on the active involvement of private business in the fight against corruption, describing it as “an evil which endangers the business environment, and the image and development of our country”.
But he was optimistic that, despite the prevailing challenges, the interaction between the government and the private sector is on the right path, and is in line with the matrix of priorities agreed for this year.
The Minister of Industry and Trade, Ragendra de Sousa, claimed that over the past 22 years (i.e. since shortly after the end of the war of destabilisation), Mozambique had introduced a range of reforms to improve the business environment.
However, the chairperson of the Confederation of Business Associations (CTA), the main body representing the private sector, Agostinho Vuma, protested that the reforms were going slowly.
“We note weak implementation of the reforms that have been approved”, he said. He said that between 2014 and 2017 seven important reforms had been approved, which should have had a positive impact on the World Bank’s annual study on “Doing Business”. Yet over the same period, in the ranking of countries in “Doing Business”, Mozambique had fallen eleven places.
“We would like to propose tighter monitoring of the implementation of the reforms approved”, added Vuma.
The matrix of priority reforms for this year was approved at the 15th annual private sector conference, held last March.
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