Maputo, Mozambique — The Mozambican government has, as expected, decreed a 17 percent increase in the statutory minimum wage of the country's workers.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) on Tuesday, after meetings of the tripartite negotiating forum between the government, the trade unions and the employers' associations, had bridged the difference between the sides to just two percent.

The unions started off the talks with a demand for a 25 percent rise, while the employers offered only 9.6 percent. The gap narrowed until the union demand was 18 percent, and the employers' offer was 16 percent.

At that point the ball was thrown into the government's court, and it will have surprised nobody that the government split the difference and announced a 17 percent rise.

The existing minimum wage for industry and services fixed in July 2000 was 568,980 meticais a month.

The new minimum wage will therefore be 665,706 meticais - 33.6 US dollars - a month.

Agricultural wages are much lower at 382,685 meticais a month. A 17 percent rise will bring this figure to 447,741 meticais (22.6 US dollars).

An agricultural worker is therefore asked to support his family on the equivalent of five dollars a week.

However, at the latest meeting of the negotiating forum it was decided that the chasm between agricultural and industrial wages should be reduced. It was agreed that agricultural wages should rise by three percent more than industrial ones.

If that decision is put into effect now (and it is far from clear that it will be), then the agricultural minimum wage will rise by 20 percent to 459,222 meticais a month.

The 17 percent rise also applies to state pensions, and to military wages.

The government has backdated the rise to 1 April.