Nyusi Surprises Vendors in Zimpeto Market, Urges them to Hold Down Prices

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Nyusi Surprises Vendors in Zimpeto Market, Urges them to Hold Down Prices

9:17 CAT | 04 Dec 2015

Jornal Notícias / President Nyusi during his visit to Zimpeto market.

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Thursday urged vendors in Maputo’s largest wholesale market, in the outlying neighbourhood of Zimpeto, not to engage in any price speculation during the approaching festive season.

Making a surprise visit to the market, Nyusi noted that prices have already risen, supposedly in response to the sharp depreciation of the Mozambican currency, the metical.

“I see that most of the imported goods, mostly from South Africa, have gone up in price”, the President said. “I’m urging that prices should only be increased when necessary”.

During his contact with the vendors, Nyusi asked them if they would have enough products to satisfy demands during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. They all replied that they would indeed have enough goods for sale, but justified raising their prices by referring to the rand/metical exchange rate.

A few weeks ago the metical was trading at 2.8 to the South African rand. But the exchange rate quoted on Wednesday by the country’s largest commercial bank, the Millennium-BIM (International Bank of Mozambique), is 3.74 meticais to the rand.

Nyusi took the opportunity to call for increased domestic production which would reduce the need for imported foodstuffs. “The first thing that can avoid speculation is production”, he declared. “We have to produce, produce and produce more. If there are enough goods for everyone, speculation will decline by itself”.

He admitted that this desired increase in production would not take place overnight. “We are not going to produce between now and 25 December”, he said, “and even in three months time, we will not be able to solve this problem”.

One glimmer of hope is that the devaluation of the metical seems to have halted, and there is a slight recovery under way. Since the start of this week, the metical has slowly gained some ground against the US dollar and the rand, although it has not recovered to the level of 45 meticais to the dollar which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last month would be a reasonable rate, much less to the 32 meticais to the dollar quoted at the start of the year.

Source: AIM News