Maputo — Despite the international financial crisis, the Mozambican economy has continued to register strong growth.

According to the government's preliminary balance sheet on the first six months of this year, total production grew by seven per cent, when compared with the January-June period of 2008.

Giving the figures to reporters on Tuesday, the government spokesperson, Deputy Education Minister Luis Covane, confirmed that in the first quarter of the year, Mozambican exports had only reached 348 million US dollars, compared with 543.1 million dollars in the same period in 2008.

The largest single factor behind this fall is the collapse in the world market price of Mozambique's most significant export, aluminium. Between March 2008 and March 2009 the aluminium price fell by over 60 per cent. Since then it has recovered somewhat - from less than 1,400 dollars a tonne on 31 March to almost 1,600 dollars a tonne today.

Covane said the adverse economic climate internationally has also affected the market for other Mozambican exports, including cotton, prawns and timber.

He said that Mozambican agriculture had performed well in the first half of this year, with a growth of eight per cent, while agricultural marketing grew by 9.4 per cent. These preliminary figures suggest that the government is on target for its target of 6.7 per cent growth in GDP for 2009.

Covane also announced that the government has given the green light to the entry of a third operator into the Mozambican mobile phone market. The third operator will be chosen through an international tender, and will join the two existing companies, the Mozambican publicly-owned company M-Cel, which dominates the market, and the South African Vodacom.

Covane said the government decision is aimed at promoting competition, and expanding access to mobile phone services at prices accessible to consumers.

He said that both the current operators are continuing to expand. "The market is not saturated, the number of their clients is continuing to grow, and there is still plenty of space for a third operator to come in", he added.

Covane said that a further government decree approved on Tuesday alters the statutes of the public company Hidraulica de Chokwe (HICEP), which is responsible for managing the irrigation scheme at Chokwe, in the Limpopo Valley, the largest irrigation scheme in the country.

The alteration gives HICEP authority not only over the water used in the irrigation scheme, but over land management in the entire Chokwe irrigated perimeter, which covers over 33,000 hectares.

"HICEP now has power to allocate land through a land use contract", said Covane. "It will inspect and accompany the implementation of agricultural projects, and decide on terminating contracts where the agreed conditions are being violated, or for other duly justified reasons".

"HICEP will have more authority and will be able to intervene not only in technical support for producers but in managing the use of land", he added. Access to land would thus become conditional on its effective use for agricultural production.

This is aimed at reversing the current situation where there are private farmers occupying land in Chokwe, but producing nothing. Greater power for HICEP may also end the situation of farmers using water that belongs to HICEP, and failing to pay for it.