Sugar exported by Mozambique in the first quarter yielded just three million dollars (2.7 million euros), a drop of 70.7 percent compared to the same period in 2023, according to data from the central bank compiled by Lusa. According to a report by the Bank of Mozambique on the balance of payments in the first three months of the year, the drop in revenues from the export of Mozambican sugar “was due to the reduction in the volume exported, associated with the low availability of sugar cane”. “Due to the floods and inundations recorded at the beginning of the year”, the document reads. In the first quarter of 2023, sugar exports yielded 10.3 million dollars (9.4 million euros) for Mozambique. Lusa reported this week that sugar production at the Mafambisse Sugar Mill, in the province of Sofala and one of the main provinces in Mozambique, is falling due to the combined effects of bad weather and climate change, according to the administration. “We are experiencing declines in our sugar production due to some difficulties caused by the bad weather in the country in recent years,” Pascoal Macule, director of Tongaat Hulett, the group that owns the Mafambisse Sugar Mill, told reporters on Thursday. The director said that, of the 75 thousand tons produced annually by the company, this has fallen to 40 thousand in the last two years, creating huge losses for the factory. Another factor that influenced the sharp drop in production was the loss of around 8,000 hectares of sugar cane, the raw material for sugar production, due to the effects of climate change: “This in Nhamatanda, due to the drought in our fields and the El Niño phenomenon.” Located in the administrative post of Mafambisse, in the Dondo district of Sofala, the sugar mill has the installed capacity to produce 92,000 tonnes of sugar per year. Tongaat Hulett recently announced an injection of 500 million rand (25 million euros) into the Mafambisse and Xinavane sugar mills, both in Mozambique and in which the South African group is the majority shareholder. Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, cyclically facing floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April. The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe in living memory: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the largest ever to hit the country. Sofala province, in the center of the country, has been one of the most affected by the storms. In the first quarter of last year, heavy rains and the passage of Cyclone Freddy caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people in the country, destroyed 236,000 homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official government data. (Lusa) Source: Carta de Moçambique
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