Focus must fall on export beneficiation

In response to the riots in Maputo earlier this year, the Mozambican government is likely to focus more on adding value to exports of raw materials and produce from the country in order to create jobs, predicts Ahmad Chotia, managing director of Manica Freight Services Mozambique. “With a volatile population, the Mozambican government has to take drastic measures and change its policies,” he says. He expects the government to incentivise investment in local manufacturing, with the focus on the Mozambican and South African markets. A first step would be for Mozambique to stop “subsidising transit cargo”. It is “wrong,” he says, for the majority of freight handled at the Mozambican ports to pass through without any value being added or jobs created – apart from the few in the freight industry. He is also critical of the “briefcase companies” currently exporting goods into Mozambique and neighbouring countries. “They have no social obligations, and if something goes wrong, they will walk out,” he says. Chotia says investment in the ports is creating opportunities for Mozambican exports to the rest of the world as well. “We need to focus on the internal province. There is a very rich farming area,” he says. Manica Freight Services is a Mozambicanowned company with a staff of some 500, and represents over 40 shipping lines.