Before the worst floods in the history of Africa, Mozambique had astonished the world by reaching growth rates of around 15% in a remarkably short space of time. Now, after the flood waters have receded, the country has picked itself up and is more than ready and willing to work. Tom Nevin reports.

Seldom in Africa’s history has a country had to contend with a rougher deal than Mozambique. Few nations have built themselves up so frequently only to be knocked down by man-made or natural disasters - and fewer peoples have shown such resilience of human spirit, such grit to succeed against the cruellest odds and such cheerfulness in the face of adversity as the people of Mozambique.

In the wake of the floods that devastated the southeast African nation last year, America’s prestigious Island Property Report nicely summed up the Mozambique human condition thus:

?Mozambique took a savage beating at the hands of the succession of cyclones. The flooding was the most calamitous in the history of the African sub-continent and yet, so soon after the event, the process of healing and rebuilding was everywhere to be seen. We found little evidence of lament or self pity amongst the Mozambicans. Just a cheerfulness, willingness and determination to reconstruct their country and their lives.?

After a civil war that plodded on for nearly two decades, cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and dragged the economy down to the point that Mozambique officially became the world’s poorest country, the tide of political events turned and the shattered nation begin the process of reconstruction

Most notable amongst these early steps was the realisation of a dream - the building of a super-corridor that would link South Africa’s industrial heartland of Gauteng with the Mozambican capital of Maputo. This would lay the foundation for a revival of trade on a massive scale, and create economic opportunity along the 400km corridor for thousands of people on both sides of the border.

But, before anything of the sort could happen, the concept of the corridor needed to be sold to a prestigious ?anchor’ client. This was necessary to attract the $1bn or so in private funding needed to lay the highway, upgrade the rail link, rehabilitate the port of Maputo and provide the seed capital to stimulate entrepreneurship in the corridor itself.

And so it was that Mozal was conceived.

The initial investment was a massive boost to the corridor when the deal was signed and it triggered an almost immediate response from sponsors and funders keen to become involved in the thousands of opportunities that suddenly presented themselves. Virtually every sector was given a kick-start -from budding support industries to the financial sector, from transport and communications to tourism.

Far-reaching vision needed

Far-reaching imagination and vision were required for the siting of Mozal. It needed land, lots of it. It needed access to labour. It needed room to grow. A large tract of land on the semi-rural outskirts of Maputo was chosen. The siting of the smelter and its construction meant an immediate upliftment of the area in both economic and infrastructural terms. It brought widespread employment to a desperately poor community, as well as services such as water, electricity, sewage disposal, telecommunications and roads.

As a model for the way in which industrial Mozambique would develop, Mozal set some vital benchmarks. Importantly, it moved up the timetable for the establishment of cheap electricity (aluminium production requires huge flows of power), through a consortium led by South Africa’s Eskom. Eskom links power costs with the price of aluminium, tax incentives from the Mozambique government and the availability of a skilled and flexible workforce.

Taking this and other developments - both in place and potential - into account, Mozambique is itself becoming an industrial benchmark, where before it was simply a measurement of the worst poverty in the world. It is becoming a performance indicator that is has international business calling it ?investor friendly’ with ?great potential’ and encouraging other funders to follow their example.

South African investment charge

South Africa has largely led the charge of investment into Mozambique (Billiton, Mozal?s lead investor, was a South African company until three years ago when it moved its headquarters to London and switched its primary listing to the London Stock Exchange). Sugar giant Illovo has invested heavily in buying into and rehabilitating sugar mills in southern and central Mozambique. Hotel and leisure conglomerate, the Sun Group, is making its presence known along the idyllic coastline, supermarket chains Spar, Pick’n’Pay and Checkers are vying for a slice of the increasing consumer spend with retail outlets in Maputo and Beira. South African construction companies and consultants have their names plastered on the cranes that are changing Maputo’s skyline. An Anglo-South African consortium is rehabilitating the harbour and port facilities.

Although the ideological change still goes against the grain of Mozambique’s political leadership and its bureaucracy, which until only a few years ago ran the country along strict Marxist lines, the economy is slowly bending to the new demands of capital-based restructuring.

South Africa is also indirectly investing in Mozambique’s tourism industry. South African holiday-makers fuel the sector with an increasing flood of holiday rands as they escape from their own overcrowded beaches and rediscover their neighbour’s 2,000km of coastal paradise.

Down but never out, Mozambique will inevitably triumph. It will win simply because it has an abundance of guts and an unquenchable thirst to succeed.
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