Africa-Press – Mozambique. The African Development Bank (ADB)) Group is granting 1.5 million US dollars to Mozambique to support the development of women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which will enable them to provide local content for the natural resource sector.
The grant builds on the previous grant in June of one million US dollars to fund the provision of technical and institutional assistance to the Institute for the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (IMPEME) aimed at supporting youth projects.
The current grant will provide technical and institutional assistance to Mozambique’s National Hydrocarbon Company (ENH) under the ‘Creating a Sustainable SME Supply Chain in the Oil and Gas Sector in Mozambique (LinKar)’ project.
This flows from the decision of the ADB in November 2019 to approve a loan of 400 million dollars to the Mozambique LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) Area One project, which will have an initial production capacity of 12.88 million tonnes of LNG per year, drawing on the discoveries of massive reserves of natural gas in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado. The loan agreement includes reference to the need for technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of local companies to provide services to the hydrocarbon sector.
However, this LNG project is currently at a standstill because of the terrorist attack against the town of Palma on 24 March. The consortium undertaking the project, headed by the French company Total, promises that it will resume operations when the security situation allows.
According to an ADB press release, LinKar will concentrate on improving the capacities of local small and medium enterprises to supply a wide variety of goods and services including catering, office supplies, customs clearance, recruitment, and logistics.
Estevao Pale, the chairperson of the ENH board, points out that the implementation of gas projects over the next 12 to 24 months requires the realisation of the four action areas under LinKar – training, finance, technical assistance, and contracting small and medium enterprises.
In particular, Pale referred to the development of the Coral South floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project in Cabo Delgado and the CTT power project in the southern province of Inhambane.
The African Development Bank financed its first project in Mozambique in 1977 and since then has focused on supporting projects covering agriculture, transport, water and sanitation, energy, communications, mining, and finance.
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