Portugal, Mozambique sees impressive rise in economic relations

Portugal and Mozambique have seen an impressive rise in economic relations, Deputy Prime Minister Paulo Portas said Friday, with exports between both countries rising by 30 percent in the first five months of 2015.

"In 2015, the growth of exports from Portugal to Mozambique and vice versa were exactly the same in the first five months, as if it had been planned, and they grew by 30 per cent," Paulo Portas said during Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi's visit to Portugal.

Portas pointed out around 3,000 Portuguese companies were working in the Mozambican market and that in less than five years, exports of goods from Portugal to Mozambique had more than doubled from 150 million euros (162.75 million U.S. dollars) to 320 million euros.

"Mozambique is the most impressive case of growth of economic relations with Portugal," he said.

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho on Friday praised Mozambique for the diversification of its economy.

Passos Coelho said President Nyusi had a "great concern to diversify the Mozambican economy," adding that it was very important for the economy not to be transformed into a single ground economy and one dependent on the exploitation of natural resources.

He added expectations for greater development in the area of hydrocarbons in the next decade was very important and that he hoped Portuguese exports would surpass 50 percent of gross domestic product in 2020.

Also on Friday, the CEO of Portuguese company Portucel, Diogo de Silveira, said Africa's largest plant nursery would be inaugurated in September in the Mozambican provinces of Zambezia and Manica.

"It is a significant investment, with 400 million dollars in the forestry phase and 2.2 billion euros in the industrial part of the project", Silveira told reporters at the factory in Setubal, around 49 km south of Lisbon.

"We are going to build what we believe is the most competitive paper pulp factory so as to deliver the final product to Shanghai (China)," he added, according to Lusa News Agency.

President Nyusi started his two-day visit to Portugal on Thursday accompanied by his wife Isaura Nyusi and 60 businesspeople.