Indian Export-Import Bank (EXIM) has outlined plans to open up three credit lines worth US$217mn for Mozambique to fund public works and housing projects in the southern African country
The agreement was signed at the Mixed Commission for Cooperation between Mozambique and India by Mozambique’s finance minister Manuel Chang and EXIM chief executive David Rasquinha.
The credit lines will intend to repair the Tica-Búzi-Nova road in Sofala province, finance the building of 1,200 houses in Tete, Zambézia and Cabo Delgado provinces and fund the third phase of the water supply project in the provinces of Manica, Zambézia and Nampula.
These agreements conclude the credit line announced by the Indian government during a visit by Mozambican president Armando Guebuza to India in 2010.
At the time, the Indian government had announced a credit line worth US$500mn to fund improvements in the quality of energy provided to the city and province of Maputo, investments in the agricultural sector to boost the production of rice, wheat and maize in Mozambique as well as allow for a solar panel factory to be built in Beluluane.
At the end of the third session of the Mixed Commission for Cooperation between Mozambique and India, the two sides announced that the next meeting will take place in New Delhi, India.
The Mozambican deputy minister for natural resources, Abdul Razak, noted that trade between Mozambique and India had doubled in two years, rising from US$631mn in 2010 to US$1.28bn in 2012.
