News

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Friday inaugurated an agricultural marketing and processing company, DECA, on the outskirts of the central city of Chimoio, praising it for the role it could play in poverty alleviation.

The World Bank has approved a loan of 100 million US dollars to support the second phase of Mozambique's Roads and Bridges Management and Maintenance project.

The 19 donors and funding agencies which provide direct support for the Mozambican state budget on Thursday announced that they will channel a total of 385.8 million US dollars in budget support in 2008.

The Mozambican government and the European Commission on Thursday signed an agreement in Maputo, under which the Commission will provide 11 million euros (about 14 million US dollars) towards the cost of the country's third population census, due to be held in the first half of August.

As predicted earlier this month by the independent weekly paper "Savana", the Mozambican government has chosen a consortium formed by the French bank CA Lyon, and the Portuguese Investment Bank (BPI) to finance the purchase of 67 per cent of the shares of Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi.

Mozambique's Consultative Labour Commission, the tripartite negotiating body between the government, the trade unions and the employers' associations, met in Maputo on Wednesday, but failed to break the deadlock over this year's increase in the statutory minimum wage.

Mozambican business people should develop the habit of using fairs to promote their products and services, according to some participants to the sixth edition of the Maputo Tourism Fair (BTM) that closed in Maputo on Sunday.

The governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Ernesto Gove, reiterated on Monday the need for commercial banks to expand their services into the districts, in order to boost the rural economy.

Residents in Nhamatanda district, in the central Mozambican province of Sofala, are unhappy with the low prices they obtain for the sale of their agricultural products, particularly maize.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has warned that thousands of people face hunger because maize production in southern and central Mozambique was seriously hit by February's Cyclone Favio and by poor rainfall.

As from next Monday, bakers in Maputo city and province are increasing the price of a standard 250 gram loaf of bread by 43 per cent.

The luxury tourism company, Rani Resorts, has announced that it is to develop its seventh complex in Mozambique on Ilha Santa Carolina, also known as Paradise Island, in the Bazaruto Archipelago, off the coast of the southern province of Inhambane.

Residents of Calanga, in the southern Mozambican district of Manhica, on Wednesday complained to President Armando Guebuza of the lack of access roads to meet their needs.

The safety record of the MOZAL aluminium smelter, on the outskirts of Maputo, "is approaching zero accidents, but that's still not enough", declared the company's general manager Carlos Mesquita on Thursday.

The bakers' associations of Maputo city and province are to meet on Thursday to fix the new price of bread in the capital, reports Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

Mozambique's publicly owned Ports and Railway company (CFM) completed on Monday the payment of compensation for the last 70 workers retrenched in the rationalisation of its work force, reports Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has donated equipment to Mozambique to protect health and agricultural officials involved in investigating possible outbreaks of bird flu.

The Portuguese government has promised to grant 1.7 million euros (about 2.3 million US dollars) this year.

Malaria remains the largest single cause of sickness and death in the Mozambican health system, with almost two million cases diagnosed between 1 January and mid- April this year, resulting in the deaths of 1,189 patients.

Under an agreement signed on Thursday between the Mozambican government and the World Bank, Mozambique has bought back its commercial debt for nine per cent of its nominal value.