Bazaruto — The Mozambican government is mobilizing investments in the tourism industry, in the hope that the country can benefit considerably from the large number of tourists who will visit southern Africa in 2010, when the football World Cup is due to be held in South Africa.

Tourism Minister Fernando Sumbana told AIM that new tourist establishments, including hotels and holiday homes, have been approved, mostly in Maputo. He admitted "the challenge is to continue mobilizing investments to develop other potential areas already identified".

These areas include the northern province of Cabo Delgado, Mossuril, in the neighbouring province of Nampula, and the Vilankulo area, in the southern province of Inhambane.

Sumbana claimed that medium to long term projects in these areas were valued at 1.1 billion US dollars for Vilankulo, 1.2 billion dollars for Cabo Delgado, and 800 million dollars for Mossuril. Such investments, to be implemented over five to seven years, would create 20,000 new jobs.

As for the spin-offs from the World Cup, Sumbana said the government has mobilized investment of around 500 million dollars for new accommodation, including hotels of three to five star quality. Among these new ventures is a five star hotel to be built at the Joaquim Chissano Conference Centre on the Maputo seafront.

This hotel, with 150 rooms, will cost 80 million dollars. Work should already have started, but, despite all the government's speeches against red tape, "bureaucratic questions, such as licences, are holding it up", Sumbana admitted. "However, the investment has already been mobilized".

A much larger investment, put at 320 million dollars, is the building of two hotels and several holiday homes on Xefina Island in the Bay of Maputo. Here the work has been held up by geography - the investors have found it difficult to transport equipment to the island. There is, as yet, no bridge from the mainland to Xefina.

Desite these constraints, Sumbana believed that one of the Xefina five star hotels would be ready by early 2010.

In the Mozambican section of the Greater Limpopo Cross-border Park, in Gaza province, investment of 83 million dollars is under way to build a hotel of 100 rooms, and holiday homes with 200 rooms. Given the proximity of the new hotel and homes to South Africa, Sumbana was confident that they would attract tourists during the World Cup.

He added that a project is also in hand to build a three star hotel, with 80 rooms, valued at 12 million dollars, in the southern city of Matola. Sumbana believed that this too would be ready before 2010.

Sumbana was speaking ahead of a meeting on Saturday, on Bazaruto island, in Inhambane, with his South African and Swazi counterparts, intended to discuss how to attract more tourists to the region. The meeting is part of the Libombos Spatial Development Initiatives, established by the three governments in 2000, in order to optimize economic development opportunities and adopt common strategies.

Earlier in the week, Sumbana and American millionaire Gregory Carr signed an agreement for the co-management of the Gorongosa National Park, in the central province of Sofala, for the next 20 years.

During this period, the Carr Foundation promises to invest a minimum of 1.2 million dollars a year in the park. The counterpart from the Mozambican government will be 150,000 dollars a year for the first three years.

In the first five years, the stress will be on restocking the park, which lost most of its large mammals during the war of destabilisation waged against Mozambique by the South African apartheid regime throughout the 1980s. Another 4,000 animals will be brought into the park, including endangered species such as rhinoceros.

As for tourist infrastructures, a further three camps, two of them luxury standard, will be built in the park.

According to Sumbana, the adoption of the joint management model allows access to a greater diversity of sources of funding, and reduces the burden of the park on the state budget. Community involvement in the park management will also be maximised, ensuring that local communities enjoy benefits from natural resources.

The government hopes that, as from year five, the park will be receiving 500,000 tourists a year, with an income of 75 million dollars (on the assumption that each tourist will stay for an average of three days, and spend at least 50 dollars a day).

The Gorongosa park contains 54 separate ecosystems, ranging from the Cheringoma plateau, to the flood plains of the Pungue river, to miombo woodlands, to Lake Urema, to the Gorongosa mountain range that gives the park its name.