Africa-Press – Mozambique. The President of Mozambique, Daniel Chapo, yesterday demanded more agricultural production to curtail food imports and make the country an exporter of agricultural products.
“We are going to work to produce food and not import it. The state spends a lot of money to import rice every year and when we buy rice outside the country we are taking our money to give to other countries,” the president said on the sidelines of the delivery of irrigation systems and agricultural inputs to producers in Guijá district, Gaza province.
For Chapo, it is necessary to “produce in quantity” to reduce dependence and make Mozambique an exporter of food products.
“We have to reach the level of production where we will produce food and, just as others sell to us, we will be the ones to sell to them,” he said.
Chapo stressed that reducing food imports would make it possible to “build more schools and expand the electricity grid”, among other things.
On May 16, Mozambique initiated an integrated system for issuing phytosanitary licenses and certificates to modernize agricultural trade and reduce delays in exports of the country’s production.
“The introduction of the digitalized system for issuing phytosanitary certificates (SELICEF) aims to facilitate trade by reducing the waiting time for processing documents,” reads a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, released at the time.
The platform, financed by the Netherlands and Ireland, will contribute to “transparency, efficiency and competitiveness” by integrating other systems, “such as the Electronic Single Window and the ‘EPHYTO’ [certification] of the International Plant Protection Convention,” the document explains.
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