The Portuguese government has pledged that a credit line of €90 million ($124 million) to support investment in Mozambique will be operational within the next two months. This guarantee was given on 8 February by the Portuguese Secretary of State for Finance, Carlos Costa Pina, who held meetings in Maputo with the Mozambican Ministers of Energy and Finance, Salvador Namburete and Manuel Chang.

The credit line was promised by the Portuguese government in 2007, when the agreement was reached to transfer majority ownership of the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi from Portugal to Mozambique.

According to Pina, this money can be used for “renewable energies, infrastructures or the treatment of waste”, and will help secure closer relations between Portuguese and Mozambican private businesses.

The Mozambican government is interested in using the credit line to support the construction of a new bridge over the Zambezi in Tete city, and its access routes.

With Chang, the Portuguese minister discussed the situation with two other lines of credit from Portugal supporting investment in Mozambique (€200 million in concessional credit, and €300 million in commercial credit) for which agreements were signed last September.

At the end of the meeting, Chang said the Mozambican government is satisfied with Portuguese investment in the country, and hoped that other financial agreements can be reached during the visit of Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates to Mozambique in March.