Mozambique's coming resource boom presents a number of opportunities for Mozambican businesses. The question is how can these businesses best participate in the new economy? Experience from other countries shows that SME linkages will not happen automatically, but rather that normally countries have local content / local procurement regulations in place. The question is, what is the appropriate level of regulation in a country like Mozambique, with extremely weak capacity among businesses to respond to demand from the mega-projects.
Previous Publications
In 2012 the Bank of Mozambique developed a proposal for a law that would enable the creation of private credit bureaus. Such bureaus have proved effective at expanding access to finance in other countries by enabling small businesses and other unbanked populations to build a credit record that can be used by financial institutions to assess risk. Eventually, better information about customers' creditworthiness should drive down the cost of credit for Mozambicans.
Mobile telephony holds great promise for increasing access of Mozambicans to a range of critical services. Beyond voice, SMS, and basic data, cellphones offer an ideal platform for delivering innovative education, health, and financial services.
In line with USAID’s Partnership Trade Facilitation Program, the Mozambique Revenue Authority proposes technical assistance in three areas, namely: Internet Publication, Pre-arrival processing and Pre-shipment inspection. On the internet publication component, a website on international trade in Mozambique shall be developed. The objective of the survey was to evaluate the impact of internet information on economic operators and all stakeholders regarding the availability and quality of customs legislation, procedures and declarative models as well as the usability, reliability and efficiency of the 8 relevant websites for trading across borders.
The purpose of this report is to evaluate what has occurred since the beginning of the roll-out of the Single Electronic Window (SEW) in Mozambique. It quantifies the impacts, considers which problems are “teething problems” and which are systemic and therefore likely to continue, and provides recommendations on how these matters can best be solved.
The Mozambican agriculture is being affected by non-fiscal barriers (NFB). This has negatively impacted on agriculture competitiveness. In this context the Confederação das Associações Económicas de Moçambique (CTA) requested a study to identify the structure and dynamics of NFB and evaluate their impact on the agriculture economy. The assessment revealed various types of NFB to agriculture. Distortions range from inappropriate application of customs procedures, access to diesel subsidies, deficit in access to finance, to proliferation of transit check-points and commodities transit permits within local markets. Prevailing NFB are worsening agriculture business environment.
Effective communication can be critical to trigger action to implement policy reforms. Experience has shown that policy reform acceptance, adoption and implementation requires support and buy- in by key stakeholders, and in many cases it has been the missing link to effective economic policy reforms. In many cases strategic communication has been the missing link to support adoption and implementation of policy economic reforms.
To create value from natural resources (oil, gas and mining), governments have at their disposal a mix of fiscal and non-fiscal measures that it can apply to across extractive industry value-chain. With the emerging natural resource boom in Mozambique, the Government is exploring policy options and strategies for the development of Local Content, which may have potential to boost economic multiplier effects of the oil, gas and mining industries into the local economy.
There is an increasing rhetoric about an influx of foreigners into Mozambique, with high profile cases of foreigners being returned to their countries of origin either on arrival due to lack of adequate visas or documentation, or by having work permits revoked due to alleged abuses of Mozambican staff, regularly making the headlines.