Mozambique: Industrial production slips 0.1% YoY in first 9 months, but food industry grows by 6.8%

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Mozambique: Industrial production slips 0.1% YoY in first 9 months, but food industry grows by 6.8%

3:49 CAT | 26 Nov 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: O Económico]

Mozambican industrial production fell slightly in the nine months of the year, compared to the same period in 2023, to 113.304 million meticais (€1.702 million), according to government data on budget execution accessed by Lusa today.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance report, this performance, equivalent to 78% of that planned by the government for 2024, compares with 113.366 million meticais (€1.703 million) in the same period in 2023, thus representing a decline of 0.1% in the space of a year, “in a sample composed of 337 companies”.

The basic metallurgical industry continued to have the largest share, with 31.8% of the total, but fell by 4.1% year-on-year, to 36,025 million meticais (€541 million), followed by the food industry, with 28.9% of the total, growing by 6.8% in the period from January to September, to a production equivalent to 32,695 million meticais (€491 million).

The Mozambican government expects economic growth of 5.5% in 2024, driven by the gas sector, but President Filipe Nyusi has already admitted that this target could be revised downwards due to the impact of the post-election demonstrations and stoppages taking place throughout the country for over a month.

The governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Rogério Zandamela, stated on November 8 that the post-election instability in the country does not change growth forecasts, which already incorporated this possibility, as long as it “dissipates” in the “short term”.

“For now, based on what we know today, how these risks are occurring and are materializing at this time (…) in the understanding that this process, these risks, will dissipate in the short term, these prospects for our economy are positive. Today, for now. In the understanding that they will dissipate in a reasonable, short period of time,” the central bank governor said.

“That is the message, because they were already incorporated [the post-election risks], in our vision, in our perspectives. Today they are only coming to fruition. They are not something new in which, as such, we have to adjust our forecasts. It is a realization of what we were already seeing,” Zandamela clarified.

The announcement by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) of Mozambique on October 24 of the results of the October 9 elections, in which it attributed victory to Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for President of the Republic, with 70.67% of the votes, sparked popular protests, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane.

According to the CNE, Mondlane came in second place, with 20.32%, but he stated that he did not recognize the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council.

Source: Lusa