Salimo Abdula says Mozambique capable of replacing imports with exports

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Salimo Abdula says Mozambique capable of replacing imports with exports

5:46 CAT | 30 Aug 2016

File photo / Mozambican entrepreneur Salimo Abdula and current chairperson of the Business Confederation of the CPLP ( Portuguese Speaking Countries Community).

The president of the Business Confederation of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (EC-CPLP), Salimo Abdula, says that the 52nd edition of the Maputo International Fair (FACIM 2016), which opened yesterday, is an ideal an opportunity to demonstrate how Mozambique plans to replace imports with exports.

Abdula believes that FACIM presents Mozambique with yet another opportunity to import new technologies from different parts of the world, but more especially the country can showcase its resources, which, if exploited and processed sustainably, might generate employment and economic growth.

The EC-CPLP president said that he looked forward to strong participation from confederation members, particularly Angola, Portugal and Brazil, “which have come in full strength”, and the smaller Cape Verde delegation, which intends to increase participation in the future.

The EC-CPLP Exporters Union will have its own pavilion, where meetings will be held between companies of the associated countries as well as with “others who want to invest in one of the nine member countries”, and where there will be themed rooms for Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Sao Tome, Timor, Brazil, Guinea Bissau and Equatorial Guinea.

Doing business in Portuguese, Abdula said, represented a real capital advantage because foreign language communication, according to the results of several published studies, represents a business cost to small and medium-sized enterprises of about 17 percent.

“Without neglecting opportunities in other countries which speak other languages, we should embrace this market, because doing business in a common language is much easier and faster,” he noted.

He added that the EC-CPLP recently created a core African Portuguese Language Countries (PALOP) grouping, whose coordination currently falls to Angola, and which will hold its the first meeting in Maputo soon to outline its contribution to the larger CPLP strategy.

Source: Notícias