MOZAMBIQUE AND QATAR STRENGTHEN COOPERATION

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza declared on Monday at the end of a two day visit to Qatar that business cooperation between the two countries will be strengthened following the interest expressed by Qatari businesses to invest in various areas of development in Mozambique.This visit aimed at strengthening the political and diplomatic relations between Mozambique and Qatar and to find ways to attract more investment.Guebuza told the reporters who accompanied him that Qatar should soon send specialized missions to address specific aspects and from there explore the possibility of investing in Mozambique.“The businessmen expressed interest in the area of food production which interests us a lot so that we are able to export some agricultural produce to Qatar”, said Guebuza.He was also interested in cooperation with Qatar in the area of natural gas, where this Gulf country is a world leader. Qatar is the main producer of liquefied natural gas in the world, with an annual production estimated at 77 million tons.Tourism was, according to the President, a further area of interest. However, despite the strong will demonstrated, there is still nothing concrete in terms of amounts that should be invested because the would-be Qatari investors first need to know more about Mozambique.Besides the aspects related to economic cooperation with Qatar, as stated in the various meetings Guebuza held with influential personalities such as Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khallifa Al-Thani and other members of the Qatari executive, Guebuza met with about 400 Mozambicans living in this Gulf state.These are the households of 99 Mozambican engineers and other skilled workers, many of whom were trained at the Mozal aluminium smelter, and later moved to the Gulf in search of higher wages and better living conditions.Unlike Mozambican miners in South Africa, who are protected by law through the agreements signed during the colonial period, these citizens ventured on a personal basis and their departure is something of a setback to Mozambique, which is desperately short of skilled labour.Guebuza said that Mozambican citizens are free to choose where to work and the state cannot stop them. What the state can and will do is create conditions so that more skilled Mozambicans can be employed in their own country.He thought that with modern factories such as Mozal and other emerging industries, Mozambicans with industrial skills will have space to work inside the country, if they so wish.