Following Mozambique’s announcement of its Economic Stimulus Acceleration Package (PAE) last August, which included a measure to improve the competitiveness of country’s logistic corridors, Mateus Magala – Minister of Transport and Communications, brought together the sector main stakeholders last Friday (September 30th).
The meeting included a workshop to discuss faster and safer mechanisms to improve the competitiveness of the Maputo Corridor and was heavily attended by key players in the Maputo logistics chain, The Ministers of Public Works, Housing & Water Resources and Industry & Commerce, the Mozambican Tax Authority, infrastructure operators among other stakeholders.
Under the motto “Maputo Corridor: a space for economic opportunities”, the meeting was preceded by detailed fieldwork, during which the various intervenients visited the Maputo Port, the Ressano Garcia railway line and other infrastructures including the Ressano Garcia Border, the International Bus Terminal and the Cargo Transit Railway Terminal.
At the end of the meeting, Minister Magala announced the main conclusions of the workshop, highlighting some of the key accomplishments and actions to follow:
- The need to establish a management unit for the Maputo corridor, empowered to coordinate the various investment and development initiatives in the corridor;
- With the support of cooperation partners, it was agreed to carry out an Assessment of the Corridor, clarifying its challenges and capabilities, as well as ways to better exploit its installed potential, branches of industry, commerce, agriculture and other areas of economic activity;
- The capitalisation of rail transport of minerals to prevent the growth of this type of cargo from creating constraints access roads to the port;
- The ongoing pursuit of reforms for the digitalisation and automation of clearance processes and the introduction of multiple entry mechanisms to continuously reduce transit time at the Ressano Garcia border;
- The aim to improve efficiency and competitiveness levels, performance indicators and service levels to be established for each of the actor in the logistics chain, namely, the electronic sealing of containers and the interface between port and railway;
- To continue the work already in progress for the establishment of a single border, starting with the materialization of the virtual border;
- The implementation of measures for national ports to become regional hubs, namely through legislation on transshipment and other structural reforms;
As a way of following up on the conclusions of this workshop, the technical team working on the reform of the Maputo Corridor will update the matrix under implementation, incorporating the recommendations of this meeting and ensuring its implementation;
Given the diversity of the characteristics of each development corridor in the country, the exercise carried out in the Maputo Corridor will be replicated in the Beira and Nacala Development Corridors in the coming months.
To monitor the progress achieved, Minister Magala announced the next meeting for April 2023, in an equal format, where in addition to evaluating the progress of this corridor as a whole, the progress of the Port of Maputo during the 20 years of concession will also be assessed.
The developments are part of Mozambique’s Economic Stimulus Acceleration Package (PAE), a set of reforms announced by the Government aiming to place the private sector at the center of economic transformation and development in order to create better conditions to attract investments and create jobs.
