The Mozambique government announced earlier this month that it was launching an unprecedented public tender for geological research and mineral prospecting rights.

The unprecedented aspect of the tender is that eligibility is restricted entirely to Mozambican companies. In a press release, the Mineral Resources Ministry stated that the rights would be awarded to the local companies which submitted the best proposals. Bids would have to be submitted between June 1 and June 27.
Reportedly, this decision is intended to help Mozambicans to directly benefit from the country’s mineral resources. President Armando Guebuza has already argued in favour of greater benefits for Mozambicans from the nation’s mineral wealth. According to Mozambican media, the country’s government has so far issued 112 prospecting licences to 45 local and international companies just for the province of Tete. But only a few of these have gone to local enterprises.
Tete is currently the centre of Mozambique’s coal mining industry, the development of which is being spearheaded by global major mining groups Vale and Rio Tinto. Earlier this month, Vale announced that it had run 1 000 coal trains from its Moatize mine in Tete to the Port of Beira during 2012. Vale Mozambique logistics operations director Vanderlei Marques stated that the achievement of this milestone showed “the consolidation of the operations of Vale in Mozambique”. It also, he added, increased the standing of the country in the global metallurgical coal market. During 2011, Vale ran 120 coal trains from Moatize to Beira. Since the start of operations at Moatize until the end of last year, Vale had exported more than two- million tons of Mozambican coal.
Last month, the Brazilian mining group announced that, on December 6, work had started on the construction of a new 137 km railway line from Moatize to Chikhwawa, just across the border in south-west Malawi, and from there to Nkaya junction, also in Malawi. This is part of a programme to create an alter- native coal export line for Moatize, which will run, through Malawi, to the Mozambican port of Nacala. In addition, Central East African Railways (in which Vale is the majority shareholder) will rehabilitate the 99 km line from Nkaya Junction to Nayuchi, on Malawi’s eastern border with Mozambique. The railway from Nayuchi to Nacala will also be rehabilitated.
In total, the Moatize–Nacala line will run for 912 km, and all the construction and rehabili- tation works should be completed during 2014. Vale’s investment in this programme will total more than $1.2-billion and create some 3 500 jobs, of which 82% will be filled by Malawians. The line from Moatize to Nacala will also be used to transport people and general cargo.
Meanwhile, at the end of December, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that the Mozambican economy grew by 7.5% last year, aided by a more-significant-than- expected contribution from the country’s coal sector. “Although the risks at global level remain considerable, the increase in the mining of coal continues to propel the economic growth of Mozambique, and the economic stability of the country combined with the prudent policies put into practice in the past few years should support the economy to face up to the global slowdown,” said the IMF in a press release.
Separately, at the start of this year, the Mozambique government document, Budgetary Information 2012, expressed the view that, provided the country could maximise its tax receipts from its large mining projects, the Mozambican budget could cease to be dependent on external aid within the next 20 years. (Currently, external sources fund 40% of the country’s national budget.)
December also saw the publication, by both government and mining companies, of the total taxes paid by the latter to the former during 2010. The State reported that it had received taxes totalling 1 928-million meticais from the mining and hydrocarbons sectors.
The mining and hydrocarbons companies stated that they had paid taxes totalling 1 913-million meticais.
Regarding the mining sector alone, the State affirmed that it had collected taxes from the sector totalling 588.9-million meticais (up from 572-million meticais in 2009), while the mining companies said the taxes they had paid came to 574.2-million meticais (down from 582.7-million meticais in 2009). (The average exchange rate in December was 29.5 meticais to the dollar.) This was the third such report, and all three show divergences between what the State says it received and what the mining and hydrocarbons companies say they paid. There is, as yet, no explanation for these discrepancies.