Mozambique to grow 5.5% in 2017 with financial sector contribution – Government

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Mozambique to grow 5.5% in 2017 with financial sector contribution – Government

10:49 CAT | 13 Apr 2017

File photo / A view of Maputo

Mozambique’s Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, Isaltina Lucas, said on Tuesday that the country’s economy is expected to grow 5.5 percent in 2017, with a notable contribution from the financial sector.

“In the last 10 years, real growth in financial sector activity averaged 17 percent by 2015, and the contribution of this sector to gross value added is currently around 6 percent,” Lucas, quoted by the Information Agency of Mozambique, said.

The deputy minister was speaking at the opening of the 8th meeting of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries central bank governors in Matola, near the capital Maputo.

According to Lucas, the forecast of 5.5 percent gross domestic product growth for 2017 follows an annual average of 7 percent up to 2015, slowing to 3.3 percent the following year because of adverse internal and external factors.

The expectation of a rise is partly based on an expected contribution from the financial sector.

Lucas said that the banking policy launched in 2017 had contributed to the increase in the number of banks in Mozambique from 14 to the current 19, and from 274 branches to 646.

In ten years, the number of micro-banks had increased from one to 10, and microfinance institutions from 72 to 466, she added.

There are also “three institutions that offer financial services by mobile phone to approximately five million people”, she concluded.

Source: Lusa