Portugal: Exports to Mozambique falling since 2015; imports this year up 55%

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Portugal: Exports to Mozambique falling since 2015; imports this year up 55%

3:01 CAT | 04 Jul 2018

File photo: Lusa

Portuguese exports to Mozambique have been falling since 2015, and in the first four months of this year were down a further 6.4% on the same period of 2017, in contrast to imports, which were up 55%, according to figures highlighted by Portugal’s Agency for Foreign Investment and Trade (AICEP) on the eve of a business event in Maputo.

The agency, which is currently helping organise a business summit in Maputo on Thursday, notes that Portuguese companies from January through April this year exported €54.5 million of goods, down from €58.3 million a year earlier, according to figures from Portugal’s National Statistics Institute, and that between 2013 and 2017 they fell on average by 11.7% a year.

The number of Portugal companies exporting to Mozambique has also been falling, and totalled 1,849 last year, down from 3,028 in 2013.

Portugal’s imports from Mozambique, by contrast, albeit much smaller than the flow in the other direction, soared 54.7% to €7.7 million in the first four months of this year, compared to a year earlier.

Between 2013 and 2017, however, these imports varied somewhat, with a 2013 peak of €62.7 million, falling to €34.9 million in 2014, but rising to €41.4 million last year.

In 2017 Portugal was Mozambique’s 20th most important customer – down from sixth in 2013 – and only its seventh biggest supplier, down from fourth in 2015.

In the other direction, Mozambique was last year Portugal’s 34th biggest customer.

Portugal’s main exports to its former colony last year were machinery and equipment (at 34%), common metals (11%), chemicals (9%) and pulp and paper (9%), while agricultural products, at 82%, predominated in Mozambique’s exports to Portugal.

According to Portugal’s embassy in Mozambique, the former colonial power has consistently been among the five top foreign investors in the country, with direct Portuguese investment in the country generating 52 jobs for every $1 million invested – about double the average number of jobs generated on average by foreign direct investment there.

AICEP’s Maputo office has registered 500 companies with Portuguese capital, most of them small or medium-sized.

Source: Lusa