U.S.$500 Dollars of Investment for Matola

23 May 2011

Maputo — More than 500 million US dollars worth of investment has been promised over the past eight months to fund some 50 business projects in the southern Mozambican city of Matola, which would result in the creation of at least 2,000 new jobs.

Speaking on Friday at the 3rd Matola Business Forum, the city’s mayor, Arao Nhancale, said these numbers reflect the growing appreciation, by Mozambican and foreign businesses, of the excellent conditions that Matola can offer them.

Among the major investments planned, said Nhancale, are the building of 10,000 houses for young people and workers in the public administration (costing 200 million dollars), a unit producing building equipment and furniture (15 million dollars), an industrial park in the neighbourhood of Lingamo (initial investment of three million dollars by Mozambican and Portuguese interests), and a hotel and shopping centre in Machava (2.5 million dollars).

Other significant projects, he continued, include a vehicle assembly plant in Machava, and the construction of what is planned as the largest Coca-Cola bottling plant in southern Africa. The Matola municipality has allotted Coca-Cola an area of 20 hectares for this factory.

Speaking at the Forum, former Prime Minister Mario Machungo (now the chairperson of the country’s largest bank, the Millennium-BIM) called for investing much more in municipal organisation to end the practice of improvising to solve problems. For Machungo, the fight against urban poverty demands municipal planning.

He also called for decentralisation, and the establishment of more industrial parks. This was urgent to provide jobs for a growing population. There has been a clear movement of population from Maputo into Matola. The population of Matola is growing at over four per cent a year. It currently stands at about 766,000 and is expected to reach 850,000 by 2015.

The chairperson of the Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA), Salimo Abdula, stressed the need for a debate on access to urban land under the current conditions of a market economy. He added that urban land is becoming increasingly valuable, and municipalities ought to capitalize on it as a source of revenue.

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