Brazil’s Vale joins Mozambique's Insitec to invest in Nacala, Mozambique
[ 2009-10-27
]
Nacala, Mozambique, 27 Oct – The railroad and the port of Nacala, in Mozambique's Nampula province, are to be refurbished with Brazilian help, in the biggest investment in Mozambique's transport sector, under the terms of an agreement signed Friday in Nacala.
The agreement signed in Nacala, which has Mozambique's most important deep water port, involves Brazilian multinational company Vale, the Mozambican consortium Insitec (representing the Nacala corridor) and the Maputo government, follows a year of negotiations and represents an investment of US$1.6 billion.
In Moatize, Tete province, Vale has the concession on a coal mine where it expects to mine 10 million tonnes per year in an initial stage.
The problem comes with transporting the coal to the sea, as the Sena railroad, which links Moatize to the city of Beira, and the Nacala corridor, which links Moatize to Nacala (further North) does not have enough transport capacity, leading Australian company Riversdale, another multinational mining coal at Moatize, to consider transporting the coal in barges along the Zambezi river.
Friday, hundreds of people met in Nacala to hear speeches by Celso Correia, chairman of Insitec, Roger Agnelli, chairman of Vale and Paulo Zucula, Mozambique's minister for Transport and Communications.
And because the line crosses Malawi to arrive at Tete province and Moatize, Malawi's transport minister, Khumbo Hastings Kachali was also present, who said he was happy with the project which was a way of his land-locked country transporting products to the Indian Ocean.
"Nacala could be a logistics platform that could play an important role in regional and world terms," taking the railroad also to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and making Nacala "the capital of Nampula province," said the minister.
"It is not only the railway line and the port of Nacala, it will also be the transformation of Nacala airport into an international airport. Steps have already been taken for construction to begin next year," he said.
The project, known as Nacala XXI, takes into account good port conditions and covers work at the port, the railway line and construction of a multi-purpose terminal and the final stage of operations is expected to be within three or four years. (macauhub)
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