The Cereals Institute of Mozambique (ICM) promises that it will increase, in the coming days, the control of output of agricultural products with emphasis on corn at the borders with neighboring Malawi, in order to reduce levels of informality in the cross-border market.

For this purpose, the ICM, signed on Saturday, in Marracuene district, Maputo province, a memorandum of understanding with the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC) of Malawi, aiming at a better organization of the market.

Speaking moments after the signing of the instrument, the ICM director-general, Mohamed Valá, said that, currently, the market at the cross-border level on the Mozambican side is characterized by informality in about 70%, which makes it impossible for the State to have control of the exits and entries.

According to Valá, quoted by the newspaper Notícias, the last few years have seen a somewhat strong movement and the idea is to increase more and more business on both sides, through better organization, with discussions of teams from the governments on both sides every four months.

"We cannot leave the private sector at the mercy. As a government we are going to promote meetings with our businessmen so that there is harmony, by joining forces, both in the importation and exportation of products," said Valá.

According to the source, with this movement, he believes that commercial relations will be strengthened, creating opportunities for agro-processing, thus contributing to industrialize Mozambican agricultural products.

Valá recalls that today, ICM has the management of the silos that will be pivots, that is, anchors to create this movement, whether of cereals, especially corn, but also, other grain legumes.

"Therefore, this interaction presupposes that in the next three years, we will have many advantages and gains in the economy, especially cross-border and rural," Mohamed Valá stressed.

He also assured that the implementation of the instrument starts now, but obviously, while operational arrangements are made at the level of the two countries, a meeting is scheduled already for July, at a time when Mozambique will be in the harvesting phase.

He explained that, in the last two years, it has been noticed, in the specific case of corn, a parity in the price that is practiced in Mozambique (of 14 meticais per kilogram) and on the Malawian side.