Lower Limpopo irrigation company created

11 February 2010, Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/201002100855.html

Maputo:   The Mozambican government approved on Tuesday a decree to establish the Lower Limpopo Irrigation System Public Company in the southern province of Gaza province, as part of its efforts to develop the agricultural economy.

The Government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Alberto Nkutumula, explained to reporters that the new company has the task of rendering services to agriculture in the irrigated perimeter of Xai-Xai district, and stimulate the emergence of a business community through links with sustainable markets.  The Lower Limpopo Irrigation Scheme is one of the most important in the southern region of Mozambique, and it benefited from rehabilitation few years ago.

The government also approved a change in the electricity tariffs paid by farmers who use irrigation. Previously farmers paid according to the potency of the power system supplying any given irrigation scheme. With the change, they will pay only for the real amount of power that they use, which should cut their costs considerably.

Nkutumula said this reduction in the electricity price was intended "to make this activity more competitive and, in particular to encourage food production".

The Cabinet also discussed the final balance sheet of the 2009 Economic and Social Plan (PES) to be submitted to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.  The report shows that growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 6.1 per cent, marginally lower than the planned 6.7 per cent, while the average annual inflation in Maputo city was only 3.3 per cent, compared with the predicted eight per cent.