The Mozambican authorities have already allocated approximately 10 million US dollars for the construction of logistics centres in the northern provinces of Nampula and Cabo Delgado.
The amount for the construction of the Topuito (Nampula) and Balama (Cabo Delgado) logistics centres was disbursed by the World Bank under the “Conecta Negócios” Project.
The two centres are considered strategic for boosting the national productive sector.
According to Pedro Paulino, coordinator of the “Conecta Negócios project”, interviewed by AIM, these centres will have a great economic impact as they will integrate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into the mega-project circuit.
The economic infrastructure development programme is part of a strategy to reduce transaction costs and increase the competitiveness of the private sector.
“We are working on infrastructure to alleviate the private sector’s transaction costs after production to place their goods on the market”, he said.
In Topuito, the logistics centre is a key support for the activities of the Irish mining company Kenmare, creating a local industrial ecosystem with strong ties to the extractive sector.
The investment in Topuito comes in a context where the Mozambican government and Kenmare, responsible for the exploitation of titanium bearing heavy sands in the region, are in the process of negotiating a new contract.
The main objective of the government is to increase the State’s share of the revenue generated by this activity, raising the profit rate from 1.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent, thus reinforcing the sector’s contribution to the national economy.
“We have an initiative to contribute to the establishment of small and medium-sized enterprises that can directly supply the demands of Kenmare”, he said.
In Balama, the logistics centre is associated with graphite mining, positioning itself as a critical infrastructure to assist in the processing, of graphite and distribution of production.
“In Balama, the project will build a logistics centre that can address aspects of processing and packaging for consumer markets,” he stressed.
In the field of business training, he said, “Conecta” has trained over 7,000 micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, of which approximately 45 percent are owned by women.
Source: AIM
