Maputo — The Mozambican government is forecasting a growth of 5.5 per cent in the country's GDP in 2024, President Filipe Nyusi announced on Wednesday.
Giving his annual State of the Nation address to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Nyusi said the government's forecasts take into account a slowing down of the inflation rate and exchange rate stability, resulting from the restrictive measures under implementation.
But he admitted that the forecast growth also depends on normal climatic conditions and on support for the Mozambican budget from foreign cooperation partners.
Nyusi believed GDP growth will be driven by the liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in the Rovuma Basin in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
The only one of these currently operating is the Coral Sul floating LNG platform, owned by the Italian energy company, ENI. By the end of the year, Nyusi said, there will have been 41 shipments of LNG from Coral Sul, earning 75 million US dollars for the Mozambican state.
"Our gas is already being consumed in Europe and Asia, which is expressed in gains for our country', he said. "Up until yesterday (19 December) there were 39 shipments'.
The first LNG shipment was in November 2022, under a 20 year contract with the British company BP, which will purchase all the LNG produced by Coral Sul.
Much more LNG will be produced from Area One of the Rovuma Basin. This gas will be processed at plants built on the Afungi Peninsula, in Palma district, by a consortium headed by the French company, TotalEnergies.
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Work on this project was interrupted by an islamist terrorist attack on the town of Palma in March 2021, and Total Energies will only resume operations at Afungi when it is satisfied with the security conditions. Nonetheless, Nyusi was optimistic that work at Afungi will indeed resume in 2024.
Nyusi said the annual inflation rate came down to 8.06 per cent in October, and on 30 September the country's Net International Reserves stood at 3.087 billion US dollars, enough to cover three months of imports of goods and non-factor services, excluding the mega-projects. "This is an acceptable level of coverage, bearing in mind international good practices', said the President.
Nyusi added that the implementation of the new wage scale for the public administration (TSU), in order to eliminate "wage discrepancies' had put an enormous strain on the state's finances. Before the TSU, the state wage bill was 11.8 billion meticais (about 184 million dollars, at the current exchange rate), but it has now risen to 15.8 billion meticais.
