Maputo, July 31, 2024 (Lusa) - Mozambique's coal exports grew by 0.3% in the first quarter, to $462.3 million (€427.2 million), but the gap with natural gas as the product most sold abroad is narrowing.
According to a report on the balance of payments in the first quarter by the Bank of Mozambique, to which Lusa had access today, coal continued to lead Mozambican exports, but with a small increase compared to the same period in 2023, when it was $460.9 million.
The report describes ‘the growth in sales of mineral coal stems from the rise in price on the international market, in a context in which the volume exported fell by 5.6%. '
Natural gas exports totalled $443 million (€408.8 million) in the first quarter of the year, an increase of almost 30% compared to the same period in 2023, when they were $340.9 million (€314.6 million).
Aluminium, the third most exported product, totalled sales of $202.2 million from January to March, a drop of 21% year-on-year, while electricity sales grew from $141 million (€130.2 million) to $158.6 million (€146.5 million), according to the same document.
‘In the case of electricity, the increase continues to be influenced by the upward revision of the export price applied to the main customers by the main company exporting this resource in 2023,’ it points out.
Mozambique has the third largest natural gas reserves in Africa, estimated at 180 million cubic feet, and currently has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, classified among the largest in the world, off the coast of Cabo Delgado.
Sales of natural gas by Mozambique totalled US$1.726 billion (€1.591 billion) in 2023, three times more than in 2022, coming close to coal, which still leads among Mozambican exports, according to figures previously reported by Lusa.
Among Mozambique's traditional products, the leading exports were tobacco, whose sales grew to $60.2 million (€55.6 million), due to ‘an increase in the volume exported of more than 100%’, vegetables, which increased by 67.7% to $37 million (€34.2 million), while bananas grew by 43.5%, also in the first quarter, for total foreign sales of $11.8 million (€10.9 million).
In the first quarter of 2024, the Mozambican economy's sales of goods abroad totalled $1.764 billion (€1.6 billion), a year-on-year increase of 3.1% compared to the same period in 2023, while the bill for imports of goods fell by 2.5% to $2.020 billion (€1.867 billion), ‘reflecting the fall in imports of goods’.
PVJ/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
