The Confederation of Mozambican Economic Associations (CTA) requested the ADB to revise its strategy to allow greater inclusion of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and financing can be passed on to small and medium-sized companies through Commercial Banks.

The private sector had a meeting a few days ago with the Executive Director of the African Development Bank (ADB), Judith Kateera, in which they addressed, among other issues, the issue of financing the private sector. The ADB has financing mechanisms for large projects valued from 30 million dollars.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the business sector points out that it has been incurring heavy losses due mainly to the constraints this pandemic imposes on this sector in terms of market access, increased production costs, and a deteriorating macroeconomic environment.

According to the CTA, by August 2020, 4,300 businesses were severely affected by the impacts of the new coronavirus pandemic, mainly in the hotel and restaurant sector, but by December 31, 2020, a total of 1,075 businesses had declared their bankruptcy.

In the first half of last year alone, it is estimated that, the total volume of losses of the Mozambican business sector, as a whole, amounted to approximately 31,263 million Meticais, corresponding to 453 million dollars.