Dubai: The President of Mozambique on Sunday night confirmed the country support to the UAE’s bid to host Expo 2020.
“We are committed to support the UAE in their innovative attempt to host Expo 2020 which will bring promising returns in developing several countries in the region and worldwide and Mozambique is one of these,” said President Armando Emilio Guebuza, who was speaking at the Mozambique Business Conference.
The forum was attended by delegations of ministers, senior government officials and business leaders from both countries.
The president added that relation between the UAE and Mozambique goes beyond businesses to more than friendship ties.
However, he called upon the UAE to invest in Mozambique marking the most potential sectors mainly in the agriculture businesses which serve the emirates programme of food security.
“Already there are many companies in Mozambique owned by UAE nationals while most of the Emirates’ investments are focused on transport and telecommunication.”
He highlighted how Emaar is already exploring for business opportunities in Mozambique.
Laurenco Sambo, Director-General of Investment Promotion Centre in Mozambique, remarked that the UAE is the largest countries in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Mozambique at $250 million in 2012.
The UAE’s FDI into Mozambique in 2011 was only $25 million in 2011.
Guebuza said the UAE could play a catalytic role in Mozambique economic growth.
“While our country is rich with oil and gas, we are looking forward to investments across the entire value chain covering agriculture, infrastructure development, tourism, health care, retail, banking and insurance,” he said.
He pointed out how the latest reformation that the Mozambique government achieved has helped in created a fertile ground to attract further investments to the country.
“Recent reformations that tackled the labour law, commercial law, companies law in addition to other legal infrastructure has resulted in developing an ideal investment environment able to attract more businesses to Mozambique,” he said. With real GDP growth projected to grow at over 7.6 per cent this year and by 8.1 per cent in 2014, Mozambique is one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa. The country has significant reserves of natural gas and mineral resources including coal, gold, titanium and precious stones. The country is also investing heavily in boosting its power infrastructure through natural gas, coal, hydro and solar energy plants.
