The Mozambican state loses around 250 million dollars every year due to under-declarations in its mining exports. For example, when exporting graphite, different entities can declare values with a difference of up to 50%, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Max Tonela, said today.

In order to remedy the situation, the government approved a decree in 2022 that strengthens export monitoring mechanisms and price controls on the international market.

The Minister was speaking in Maputo as part of a parliamentary hearing to consider the draft Sovereign Wealth Fund Law. And, quoted this afternoon by Radio MozambiqueMax Tonela said that the Executive had considered the proposal to reinforce resources for financing the annual budget, considering that in the first years of operation of mega-projects, priority is given to repaying the capital invested.

"We want to accumulate, and with this accumulated value bring in investments in such a way that at the end of a number of years the Mozambican state can, based on the income, go and find resources to finance the state budget in a situation where there is no more natural gas being exploited. We also looked at the successful cases around the world and the less good ones. We have countries that have had great resources and have been riding the wave of resources by raising the standard of consumption of the state too much, they have gone into too much debt and now the level of resources is reducing and they are entering a conflict in which they don't have the capacity to have more resources than they do on a day-to-day basis in the current year. They have very high public debt responsibilities and are in a conflict of cashflow" he explained.

On the occasion, the government explained that the Bank of Mozambique will be the manager of the Sovereign Fund, under an operational management agreement that is yet to be signed with the executive. This will be drawn up once the Sovereign Fund Management Law has been approved. The legal instrument will be made public and will be open to proposals for improvement. The Fund is expected to receive around one billion dollars a year.

Tomorrow, Thursday, the extraordinary work of the Assembly of the Republic begins, and on the agenda are four topics for consideration regarding the Sovereign Wealth Fund.