Mozambique: Sugar exports see 50% rise, generating US$36 million in 2024

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Mozambique: Sugar exports see 50% rise, generating US$36 million in 2024

11:47 CAT | 18 Jun 2025

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Tongaat Hulett Mozambique]

Sugar exported by Mozambique generated 36 million dollars in 2024, an increase of 50% compared to the previous year, recovering from the previous effects of cyclones, according to official data that Lusa had access to today.

According to the most recent balance of payments report from the central bank, Mozambican sugar exports generated US$24 million in 2023 and rose to US$36 million last year.

“This behaviour is due to the recovery of production after the adverse climatic effects that occurred in 2023,” the document reads.

Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, cyclically facing floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.

The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe in living memory: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the largest ever to hit the country.

The province of Sofala, in the centre of the country, has been among those worst affected by the storms.

Lusa had previously reported that sugar production at the Mafambisse Sugar Mill, in Sofala province and one of the main sugar mills in Mozambique, was falling due to the combined effects of bad weather and climate change, according to the administration.

Another factor in the sharp drop in production in previous years was the loss of around 8,000 hectares of sugar cane to the effects of climate change, in this case, in the Nhamatanda region.

Located in the administrative post of Mafambisse, in Dondo district, the Mafambisse Sugar Mill has the installed capacity to produce 92,000 tonnes of sugar per year.

Tongaat Hulett recently announced an injection of ZAR500 million (€25 million) into the Mafambisse and Xinavane sugar mills, both in Mozambique and in which the South African group is the majority shareholder.

Source: Lusa