12 June 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's Minister of industry and Trade, Antonio Fernando, began a visit to Vietnam on Wednesday, where he is to negotiate the purchase of rice at a preferential price.
According to official sources contacted by AIM, the government hopes to purchase 400,000 tonnes of Vietnamese rice.
Currently Mozambique's rice requirements are put at 539,000 tonnes a year. The Mozambican rice harvest is estimated at 223,000 tonnes, leaving a deficit of 316,000 tonnes.
Purchased at world market prices, that will be very expensive. Rice prices have soared over the past year. Thailand is the world's largest exporter of rice - and the price of Thai white rice rose by 122 per cent between November and April, with predictions of a further 25 per cent rise by the end of this year.
In addition to negotiating the rice deal, Fernando will seek Vietnamese technical assistance for establishing an incubating agency to promote small and medium companies. Mozambique is also interested in aid for setting up rural industrialization demonstration centres.
Mozambique has excellent relations with Vietnam. President Armando Guebuza visited Vietnam in January 2007, and General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nong Duc Manh, reciprocated with a visit to Maputo this April. During Nong's visit an agreement was signed to set up a joint cooperation commission between the two countries.
Nong declared at the time that the Joint Cooperation Commission "will act as the coordinating body for strengthening cooperation between our two countries".
"We have agreed to expand and speed up economic cooperation, trade and investment, based on the potential and the advantages of each country", he said, and listed the areas in which fruitful cooperation was possible as agriculture, fisheries, the exploitation and processing of timber, the pharmaceutical industry, health care, education, science and technology and the environment.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
