5 September 2008
Maputo — The world food crisis can be solved, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza declared on Thursday, if major investments are made in countries such as Mozambique, which possess large amounts of arable land that is still unused or underused.
Speaking at the official opening of the 44h edition of the Maputo International Fair (FACIM), Guebuza said that the industrialized world has already reached high levels of productivity in its agriculture, and does not have much room to expand agricultural production.
But many developing countries "have extensive areas whose productive potential is yet to be exploited. They have a wide range of opportunities for technological applications that can lead to a rapid increase in agricultural production and productivity", said Guebuza "It will be in countries such as Mozambique that large scale investments can contribute to mitigating the food crisis".
Currently, fragile economies, such as that of Mozambique, were suffering acutely from the rise in world food prices. But these were also precisely the economies "with the greatest potential to reverse this situation".
Steps in the right direction had been taken, Guebuza believed, with the allocation of an annual investment fund of at least seven million meticais (about 280,000 US dollars) to each of the 128 districts for projects to create jobs and increase food production.
In his recent visits to the districts, he added, he had seen "how our fellow countrymen are showing, in practice, that Mozambique can transform this world food crisis into an opportunity to produce for their own sustenance, and to supply national and export markets".
They had been "exploiting the comparative advantages of their districts, and embarking on agro-processing and the transformation, for example, of fruit into jams, liquers and other products".
There were plenty of other Mozambican foods, currently being produced only for subsistence, which could be industrialised and reach a much larger market, Guebuza said. He gave a long list of foods where the potential exists for partnerships with local or foreign investors to set up processing industries.
"We must move on from just contemplating and praising this potential", said Guebuza, "and act to produce more wealth in the context of our green revolution". He accepted that part of the challenge lay "in continuing to simplify procedures, so as to make the business environment increasingly favourable".
During his visit, Guebuza witnessed the award of prizes to the largest Mozambican exporters of 2007. Among the "megaprojects" the major exporter was the MOZAL aluminium smelter - MOZAL continues to account for over 60 per cent o Mozambican exports.
Outside the category of megaprojects, the largest exporter was the National Sugar Distributor, which handles the exports of all four Mozambican sugar companies.
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