Mozambique

F

Energy

Mozambique has vast hydroelectric potential and derives 99 percent (2003) of its electricity needs from hydroelectric plants. The Cabora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi River, completed in 1974, operated far under its optimum generating capacity from the early 1980s to the late 1990s because of damage inflicted by the civil war. In 1998 Cabora Bassa had recovered to the point that Mozambique was once again exporting power to neighboring countries.

G

Transportation and Communications

The country’s rail system consists of five separate lines penetrating inland from the ports of Maputo, Beira, and Nacala, and from Inhambane and Quelimane. Mozambique’s Beira corridor, connecting Beira with the Zimbabwean capital of Harare, carries most of the exports of southern Africa’s landlocked countries. Much of the mineral production of northern South Africa is shipped through Maputo. Mozambique’s transportation network was badly damaged in the civil war, but efforts in the 1990s to repair damaged rail lines and remove land mines from roads and highways improved shipping and transportation between the inland and the Indian Ocean. However, north-south road and rail connections within Mozambique are poor. Mozambique Airlines is the country’s major air-travel provider. International airports are located in Maputo, Beira, and Nampula.

Mozambique is served by a number of Portuguese-language daily newspapers, numerous other periodicals, many radio stations, and one major television station. The country’s media sources were largely controlled by the government until 1990, when a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press was adopted.

H

Foreign Trade

With independence, Mozambique lost its export markets in Portugal, and remaining export trade plummeted as a result of the war. The country’s trade gap shrank in the early 21st century as the economy rebounded. In 2002 total imports cost $1.26 billion, while total exports earned $663 million. Imports were brought mainly from South Africa, Portugal, Australia, the United States, and Pakistan. Exports were sent mainly to Belgium, South Africa, Spain, Zimbabwe, and Japan. Food, petroleum, machinery, and vehicles are Mozambique’s primary imports; major exports include aluminum, shellfish, and textiles.

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I

Currency and Banking

Mozambique’s currency is the metical (plural meticais; 23 meticais equal U.S.$1; 2005 average). The central bank is the Bank of Mozambique.

VI

Government

Mozambique has a multiparty, republican government that operates under a constitution approved in 1990. The 1990 constitution, a first step toward the 1992 accord that ended the civil war, replaced the Marxist-Leninist constitution of 1978.