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Ricardo Saad

Project Director Africa, Asia & Australia, Vale Mozambique

Our strategy is to grow our core businesses, such as iron ore, coal, copper, nickel, and fertilizers. With regards to coal, Mozambique is our biggest operation and it’s a very important project for us. On that account, we are happy to be celebrating one year since our first production. Besides some difficulties with the country’s infrastructure, we are happy because we are succeeding. The issues regarding a greenfield project like this are challenging, but the environment in Mozambique is very positive, and the government and society welcomes us. Mozambique was our first foray into Africa. The Inco acquisition was a landmark in Vale’s international growth, and since 2007 and 2008 we have started to invest here, and it has been a good learning process. It’s amazing how we are progressing. It is encouraging not only for us, but for other companies to invest in the region.

John Peffer

Country Manager, Anadarko

It’s important to recognize that while you may have 10,000 people on-site during construction, it takes far fewer to efficiently run an LNG plant. Over time, as a trained workforce is developed, it is our expectation that more and more of these positions will be filled by Mozambicans. The vast majority of job creation generally occurs through indirect or induced employment opportunities. As part of our LNG project management, we will work to ensure that our contractor establishes training programs to provide basic skill sets and looks to employ as many Mozambicans as possible during construction and production. We are also actively recruiting a number of Mozambican engineers and technicians that we can take to the US for two or three years to work in facilities for on-the-job training in offshore environments and gas plants—the idea being that they will come back and ultimately end up as supervisors.

Miguel Peres

Managing Director, Miguel Peres

Since we re-launched operations here in 2006, Odebrecht has prioritized Mozambique. Odebrecht has been here for six years now, and it has been involved in the one of the most important projects—the Moatize Coal Project with Vale—with works developed in Moatize and Beira. The opportunity to develop other projects, such as logistics for the mining and oil and gas sectors as well as in the agribusiness and energy sector, makes Mozambique extremely important for our strategic growth in Africa for the next few years. One of the main principles of our philosophy is decentralization. We utilize delegation for making decisions in terms of developing the market. Local presence and empowerment to decision makers here makes a big difference.

Abilio Madalena

Director General, Galp Energia-Petrogal Mocambique

Mozambique is very important to us. In Africa, Galp is present in all official Portuguese-speaking countries and in some others. Mozambique is as important as Angola on the Atlantic coast. The country is strategic in the Indian Ocean, not only for its 23 million inhabitants and about 2,500 kilometers of coastline, but also because of its strategic location, being surrounded by other major markets that is a meaningful expression. Galp is currently undertaking the distribution of lubricants in Malawi and fuels, LPG and lubricants in Swaziland, where we are currently the market leaders. We are in the lower-income market now and are planning to keep the distribution of oil. Petrogal is also attentive to the inland countries for which Mozambique is a natural supplier, becoming so strategically important in the region.

Qiu Qi

Managing Director, Huawei Mozambique

When we first entered Mozambique 10 years ago, our business was difficult. At first, revenues were fairly low, reaching no more than $2 million annually. In the beginning, there were the state-owned operators such as TDM, but the problem public operators faced was even lower annual investment. Another reason the market was difficult was that Mcel and Vodacom had closed themselves to Chinese vendors. It took a long time for Huawei to convince the market that it is a reliable partner. Fortunately, the situation has changed for the better because Huawei formed a partnership with Vodafone and then Vodacom. Entering a new market takes time and investors have to be patient. It is important to evaluate the market’s potential, in the short and long term.

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