Maputo — This week's riots in Maputo will not prevent Portuguese businesses from investing in Mozambique, according to Telmo Fernandes, managing partner of Market Access, a consultancy firm based in the northern Portuguese city of Oporto.

Fernandes is currently accompanying a delegation of eight companies from the central Portuguese region of Leiria, who are seeking investment opportunities in various sectors of the Mozambican economy (including construction, renewable energy, and information and communication technologies).

He told AIM that Portuguese businesses "retain confidence in Mozambique, despite the current disturbances".

He added that in late October, a delegation of 20 construction companies, organised by the Association of Building and Public Works Companies of Northern Portugal ((AICCOPN), will visit Mozambique and plans to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Mozambican Association of Contractors.

AICCOPN plans to hold a seminar in Portugal in September to discuss opportunities for investment in the Mozambican construction industry, to which the general director of the Mozambican government's Investment Promotion Centre (CPI) has been invited.

Fernandes added that his company plans to take five Mozambican business leaders to Portugal to acquaint themselves with modern sawmill and other forestry industrial equipment. With the recent grants of huge areas in northern Mozambique for forestry plantations, wood processing is likely to become an increasingly important part of the Mozambican economy.

He stressed that Portuguese companies are interested in investment in Mozambique as a long term proposition, while this week's disturbances "are temporary'. The riots, he added, "do not call into question the progress that Mozambique has made over the last 20 years".