Prime Minister presents plans for 2004

Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi told the Mozambican parliament and the Assembly of the Republic that the government was planning an eight per cent growth in the country's Gross Domestic Product in the year 2004. Introducing the government's Economic and Social Plan for next year, he said that other key targets were to keep inflation to nine per cent or lower, and to achieve an increase in commodity exports of about 70 per cent. Mocumbi furthermore predicted growth in all sectors of the economy, namely agriculture, by 6 per cent, livestock, 11.5 per cent, mining, 146.3 per cent (this is largely due to the extraction of natural gas from the Pande-Temane fields in Inhambane province), manufacturing industry, 11.9 per cent (excluding MOZAL), water and power production, 1.6 per cent, trade, 8.4 per cent, and transport, 8.4 per cent.

The only sector where growth will be negative was said to be construction, expected to decline by about 18 per cent, mainly because of the completion of two gigantic projects, phase 2 of MOZAL, and the natural gas pipeline from the Inhambane fields to South Africa. (Agencía de Informação de Moçambique, Maputo)