Maputo — Mozambican Brazilian, and Southern African business people are meeting for two days in Maputo to look into investment opportunities for producing biofuels, particularly ethanol, from sugar cane in Mozambique.

The meeting is organized by the Mozambican government's Investment Promotion Centre (CPI), in partnership with the Brazilian companies who are members of APLA, an institution to promote interaction between the various bodies involved in transforming sugar cane into alcohol for use as biofuel.

This initiative comes from the fact that Brazil is known as the world leader in technology to produce ethanol from sugar cane.

Speaking at the event, the Brazilian Ambassador to Mozambique Antonio de Souza e Silva said "You have today an opportunity to learn a little from the Brazilian experience concerning our revolution in the agricultural Sector, particularly in the production of ethanol".

He explained that Brazil was forced, in the 1970s to find alternatives to oil for economic reasons. For 30 years Brazil has accumulated experience in biofuels, and has been exporting its solutions to countries with similar weather and soil conditions.

According to Silva, the ethanol alternative makes good sense for fuel supply in Mozambique, and it will also benefit the producers of sugar cane, who will have a larger market for their produce.

For his part, the director of the Mozambique Agriculture Promotion Centre (CEPAGRI), Roberto Albino, recalled that after the end of the war of destabilisation in 1992, the government worked out a programme to restructure the sugar sector, which had been seriously damaged by the war.

"To that end, we managed to attract international companies, who invested about 16 million US dollars in the 1990s, to recover sugar cane fields and sugar mills in Marromeu and Mafambisse, in Sofala province, and Maragra and Xinavane in Maputo province", he said. "We went from a production of about 30,000 tonnes in 1998, to a little over 250,000 tonnes today".

'We are planning to double our sugar production to about half a million tonnes a year". He continued. "A plan for this has already been approved and the sugar mills operating in Mozambique have started implementing it".

CPI director Mahomed Rafik, said that there are a number of advantages to investing in Mozambique, including an agreement signed with China for access of Mozambican products to that country, with no quotas and exempt of customs duties.

He said that "A South African company in partnership with a Mozambican company, and with the raw material being processed by a Brazilian company, may again access to the Chinese market, because the product will be regarded as Mozambican".