4 September 2009
Maputo — Two large Mozambican textile factories, paralysed for years, may reopen later in 2008, according to the National Director of Industry, Sergio Macamo.
One is Texlom, in the southern industrial city of Matola, which has been silent for the past decade. The Portuguese company that managed the plant, Sogetex, abandoned it in 1997.
The factory has now been acquired by the Aga Khan Foundation, which intends to revive it, at first, as a clothing factory. Initially, it will employ a work force of 600 women.
Macamo said the new owners intend gradually to expand the factory's activities so as to cover the entire production chain - from cotton fibre, to cloth, to clothing.
As for the second factory, Texmoque, in the northern city of Nampula, it has been acquired by the Tanzanian company METL (Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Ltd), which is currently installing new equipment, so that production can resume this year.
Texmoque closed in 1994. A Portuguese company, Multiplier, took a majority holding in Texmoque in 1996, but proved quite incapable, or unwilling, to invest the funds needed to make it a going concern
METL promised to invest 20 million US dollars in Texmoque. The initial plan was for the factory to resume production in 2007, with a work force of 400. Macamo did not know why the re-opening had been delayed by a year.
The two factories will not primarily supply the Mozambican market for textiles or clothing, since domestic demand is regarded as too small. Instead the idea is to sell the Texlom and Texmoque products in Europe, under the European Union's EBA (Everything But Arms) initiative, whereby goods from the least developed countries, such as Mozambique, can enter the European market tariff and quota free.
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