Maputo, May 6, 2026 (Lusa) – Mozambique's Minister of Mineral Resources acknowledged on Wednesday that the country faces difficulties in securing infrastructure for resource processing, advocating for private sector involvement to address these challenges, particularly regarding access routes to main ports.
"One of the major problems we face is the issue of energy. Energy is crucial for internal processing. We have graphite, and we would like our graphite to be fully processed within the country. We still face some difficulties in guaranteeing the infrastructure needed to move to the next stage of processing," he said.
Estêvão Pale was speaking in Maputo during a debate on "Harnessing Natural Resources for Economic Diversification, Inclusive Growth, and Regional Integration" at the 12th Mozambique Mining and Energy Conference and Exhibition. He appealed to the private sector to help create access routes to the country's main ports for exporting production.
"When we talk about industrial minerals, we must consider roads and access to main ports. We must request that the private sector also participates in these ventures to facilitate the creation of added value within the country," he said.
Lusa reported this week that the Mozambican state will now take at least a 15% stake in mining ventures, according to a revision of the Mining Law. The new legislation will prohibit the sale of unprocessed mineral products in the country and establish specific areas for artisanal mining.
Parliament will discuss the proposed revisions on Thursday. In its justification, the government acknowledged that after 10 years of application, the current legislation presents "some gaps that require the reinforcement of state sovereignty over mineral resources" and needs the "capacity to fully capture revenues" from such exploitation.
At the conference, he advocated for investment opportunities in infrastructure that allow foreign investors to process resources locally. He acknowledged the fundamental role of mining and energy legislation.
"Legislation is extremely important in terms of adopting policies that gradually encourage the processing of our minerals within the country," he said.
Regarding the regional context, he called for a joint effort among Southern African nations to create political structures for the sustainable use of available mineral and energy resources and to prevent the export of raw materials.
"In terms of political structures, we need to ensure that we do not end up over-exploiting or over-exporting the resources we have," he said, warning that several basic materials with the same content are currently being exported. "We need to ensure that the resources at our disposal are validated to the maximum, so that we do not end up exporting raw materials," he added.
“We need to ensure that we have the necessary infrastructure to separate these minerals. We have focused on specific projects and made progress because, given the scale of our savings, we cannot develop these projects on our own. We need to join forces to make certain projects viable for investors,” he said.
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