The Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA) said today in Maputo that hundreds of companies will not reopen their doors after being vandalized during the post-election demonstrations.

"Clearly there are many hundreds of companies that are not going to open again. Some due to lack of capacity and others due to lack of money to buy and re-qualify their industry, and others because they simply gave up," said Paulo Oliveira, a representative of the CTA, at a meeting with the Ministry of Economy.

Entrepreneurs say they are going through a period of enormous difficulty and are making countless sacrifices to maintain operations, jobs and safeguard financial commitments to banks and the state.

To this end, the CTA presented and proposed a series of measures to the ministerial delegation, such as the abolition of taxes, in order to ease some of the burdens.

Other proposals made by the businessmen were the rehabilitation of National Road number 1, "which is our backbone, where all the goods pass from north to south" and the revision of fuel taxes.

In addition, the entrepreneurs want the government to adopt more sustainable models for all users when charging tolls.

The National Director of Foreign Trade, Claire Zimba, said that there had already been an intervention at the level of monetary policy that could help the financial system react in a more subsidized way for the business sector.