5 December 2007
Maputo — The Mozambican government plans to attain a level of economic growth of around seven per cent in 2008, and bring the inflation rate down to 5.7 per cent.
Prime Minister Luis Diogo announced these targets as she introduced the government's economic and social plan for 2008 in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
(For comparison, the targets in the 2007 plan were for a 7.2 per cent growth rate, and average annual inflation of six per cent).
Other targets in the 2008 plan include an increase in commodity exports of about two per cent, and maintaining a level of net international reserves sufficient to cover 4.2 months of imports of goods and services.
Explaining the plan in detail, the Minister of Planning and Development, Aiuba Cuereneia, said the government expected an increase in agricultural production of about 7.5 per cent resulting from both an increase in the area under cultivation, and gains in productivity.
The latter will include increased use of animal traction, and the spread of improved agricultural technologies as part of the "Green Revolution" that the government advocates.
The plan envisages raising grain production from the 2007 figure of 2.2 million tonnes to 2.4 million tonnes (a rise of nine per cent), while production of beans and groundnuts should increase by 12 per cent (from 366,000 to 410,000 tonnes).
The government forecasts a 6.9 per cent increase in agricultural marketing, mostly of cash crops, and particularly sugar.
Cuereneia said there would be an increase of 16.5 per cent in the area under sugar cane cultivation, while the four sugar mills (at Marromeu, Mafambisse, Xinavane and Maragra) would produce 273,000 tonnes of sugar in 2008, an increase of 36.2 per cent.
As for livestock, Cuereneia said that the number of cattle in Mozambique should reach 1.7 million, an increase of 7.2 per cent on the 2007 figure.
Mining production is set to increase by 30 per cent. Much of this is because 2008 will be the first full year of production of titanium ores at the Moma heavy sands mine in Nampula province, operated by the Irish company, Kenmare.
Growth of 22.7 per cent is expected in transport and communications. This is largelky because 150 new buses will enter service on the country's roads, and new air traffic routes will be inaugurated (Cuereneia gave no details of these).
Communication services will continue to expand (dominated by the mobile phone companies M-cel, and its South African rival Vodacom).
In water supply, said Cuereneia, the government plans to build 1,500 new wells and boreholes and rehabilitate 500 existing sources. A further 792,500 people should benefit from these source, pushing the percentage of Mozambicans with access to clean drinking water up from 46 to 48.5 per cent.
As for the education system, the government plans that 858 new schools will function in 2008 - 435 of these will be in first level primary education (1st to 5th grades), 375 in second level primary eduction (6th and 7th grades), 36 in the first cycle of secondary education (8th to 10th grades), and 12 in the second, pre university cycle (11th and 12th grades).
There should be a rise of 13.6 per cent in the number of pupils attending school. To teach them, 12,000 new teachers will be recruited, on top of the current figure of about 87,000.
In health care, Cuereneia pledged priority to "increasing access to health services and improving the quality of the services provided, in order to reduce high rights of mortality and morbidity".
To reduce infant mortality, the government promises "the expansion of essential care for newborns in the health units, and training in paediatric anti-retroviral treatment (the only hope for HIV-positive infants) for doctors and other health staff".
The number of health units providing basic and emergency obstetric care will increase as a key measure to reduce maternal mortality. Some 60 per cent of the country's health units will be able to offer pregnant women "Intermittent Preventive Treatment" against malaria, which remains one of the major causes of maternal deaths.
The health ministry also hoped to give vitamin A supplements to 85 per cent of women of child bearing age, and iodine supplements to 80 per cent of them.
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