Nelspruit, South Africa — Mozambique intends targeting medium-sized South African businesses in a new investment drive due to be launched in Mpumalanga on August 23. The investment drive will seek to partner South African high-tech and manufacturing companies with Mozambican counterparts in a bid to improve the technological levels of Mozambique's existing industrial sector. Mozambique's Investment Promotion Centre (CPI), the country's official trade promotion agency, will also seek to find mid-sized South African partners to exploit or process existing natural resources such as mineral deposits and tourism potential.

The initial leg of the investment drive will attempt to build on the R25 billion Maputo Corridor Initiative and is being facilitated by Mpumalanga's Investment Initiative (MII). MII operations director Musi Skosana said South Africa had already overtaken Portugal as Mozambique's number one foreign investor over the past seven years. Skosana stressed that South African investment had been project orientated, however, and had been driven by the country's massive economic conglomerates behind projects such as the US$1,5-billion Mozambican Aluminium Smelter (Mozal).

"This new investment drive will not be packaging mega-projects and will instead be targeting medium sized South African companies for everything from hotels to retail and small factories," said Skosana. The latest available trade figures indicate that South African exports to Mozambique totaled R62 billion during 2000, with imports from Mozambique worth R1,6 billion during the same period. South African companies are meanwhile key to some of Mozambique's largest industrial infrastructure projects, including a proposed titanium smelter, a petrochemical complex and gas pipeline.