Carajas — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Thursday visited the zoological and botanical park financed by the Brazilian mining company Vale, in the Carajas area, in the Amazon Forest.

Vale has a mining concession in the western Mozambican province of Tete, and plans to build a large open cast coal mine in the district of Moatize. The company took the opportunity of Guebuza's visit to announce that it intends to spend 170 million US dollars in social projects in Moatize.

So far Vale has spent seven million dollars of this sum, including on the rehabilitation of the Tete Provincial Hospital, and the Moatize mid-level Institute of Geology and Mines. Vale also announced that, between now and the end of 2010, it intends to train 500 Mozambicans in Moatize in various skills pertinent to the mining industry.

The main purpose of Guebuza's visit to Carajas was to observe Vale's open cast iron mine, the largest in the world, which produces 13 million tonnes of iron a year.

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