Maputo — Mozambique's Minister of Tourism, Fernando Sumbana, on Tuesday night inaugurated a rehabilitated hotel in downtown Maputo, in which the Portuguese Amorim Group has invested nine million US dollars.

In the past this used to be the Hotel Turismo. Abandoned by its Portuguese owners at the time of independence, it was taken over by the state, but went into decay in the 1980s.

The Amorim group was invited to take it over in 1999, and completely rebuilt the 167 rooms to international standard.

49 per cent of the shares of the Mozambican company set up to run what has now been renamed the Ibis Hotel are held by the Amorim Group, and 31 per cent by the Mozambican group GCP. The latter has been formed by 31 individuals, all of them Mozambican, headed by prominent businessman and parliamentary deputy for the ruling Frelimo Party, Hermenegildo Gamito.

As in all privatised companies, the remaining 20 per cent is reserved for the undertaking's workers and managers.

The rooms are clean, comfortable, air-conditioned, with television and radio - and are cheap. For Ibis is classified as a two star hotel, and is charging only 38 US dollars a night (including breakfast) for its standard rooms.

The opening of cheap hotels in Maputo poses a serious threat to the over-rated "traditional" hotels such as the Polana and Cardoso, whose excessive prices have been losing them large numbers of clients.

Asked whether there were not too many hotels and too few guests in Maputo nowadays, Sumbana denied this was a serious problem. He stressed that when a country's tourism industry was taking off, it was natural that initially they supply of hotel beds would outstrip demand.

There are hotels of the Ibis brand in 33 countries on five continents. In Africa, these hotels can be found in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Morocco and Madagascar.