Mozambique and Malawi boost Nacala Corridor – Watch

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Mozambique and Malawi boost Nacala Corridor – Watch

6:30 CAT | 15 Sep 2017

TVM / The Minister of Transport and Public Services of Malawi, Jappie Mhango (L) with Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi

The Mozambican and Malawian governments on Friday signed an addendum to the Agreement on the Nacala Development Corridor, which will pave the way for investment of a further 2.5 billion US dollars in this rail and port system.

The corridor runs from Nacala Bay, on the northern Mozambican coast, to the Malawian border, and then through southern Malawi to reach the Moatize coal basin in the western Mozambican province of Tete. Nacala Bay, regarded as the best deep water harbour in East Africa, now contains two ports – the long established Nacala commercial port, and the recently constructed mineral port at Nacala-a-Velha.

Addressing the Friday ceremony, Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi said the addendum brings the agreement between Mozambique and Malawi, signed in September 2000, into line with “the current challenges in the transport and logistics sectors, emerging from the recent growth in the economies of both countries”.

He believed that the addendum would make viable the search for funding of 2.5 billion dollars “to expand the geographical coverage and to modernise the Nacala Development Corridor”.

Partners in this, Baloi added, are Japan, Brazil and the Brazilian mining giant Vale (which financed the railway from Moatize, across Malawi, to Nacala).

Transport Minister Carlos Mesquita said the central objectives of the addendum “are the regulation and coordination of cross-border aspects, The railway crosses Malawi, and so practical matters of a legal nature, concerning customs, for example, must be taken into account”.

As for the economics of the corridor, Mesquita believed it should not be limited to coal exports (which he estimated at nine million tonnes this year). The line should carry traffic in both directions, he said, including Malawian trade.

Mesquita believed that modernisation of the Nacala Corridor “will have an impact on the development of both countries, providing logistical support for agriculture, tourism and trade”.

He pointed out that other countries of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region, such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, could also make use of the Nacala Corridor.

“We must maximise and optimise use of the railway”, he said. The target of 2.5 billion dollars to be raised would improve the rail facilities and capacity on both sides of the border.