The volume of foreign exchange transactions between banks and clients remained at nearly 3,000 million euros in the first quarter in Mozambique, compared to the same period over the last five years, the Finance Minister said yesterday while explaining measures to address the shortage of foreign currency in the market.
Answering questions from deputies in parliament, Carla Loveira detailed that Mozambique has implemented monetary and fiscal policy measures since last year to address the lack of foreign currency.
“These allowed the volume of foreign exchange transactions between banks and the public (exporters and importers) to remain at approximately 3.5 billion dollars [2,995 million euros] in the first quarter of 2026, in line with the average for the same period over the last five years, which was around 3.3 billion dollars [2,823 million euros],” the minister said.
The official again admitted to a challenging framework of foreign currency scarcity, underlining the need to move forward with the production and sale of goods and services abroad to receive foreign currency in exchange, which is necessary to pay for imports. The executive also pointed to the impacts of the 2024 post-election demonstrations and the change in the international financial architecture, with the fluidity of external resources increasingly turned toward public-private partnership investments rather than general State Budget support, among other factors causing the lack of foreign currency in the country.
“Together, these reasons contribute to the challenging framework of foreign currency availability in Mozambican territory. Notwithstanding the listed challenges, the Mozambican Government is implementing measures to reverse the challenge of foreign currency availability in the economy and make its passage to the market more flexible,” said the Finance Minister.
According to the official, measures to curb the shortage include those related to monetary policy, such as the reduction of the Mandatory Reserve coefficient in Foreign Currency by 10 percentage points (from 39.5% to 29.5%).
Last year, Mozambique also approved an increase in the minimum conversion rate for export revenues from goods, services, and investment income abroad from 30% to 50%, in addition to the institution, since 2025, of the mandatory repatriation and conversion into national currency of all revenues from the re-export of petroleum products. Regarding fiscal policy measures, she said the executive is monitoring coordination with the national financial system to ensure the availability of foreign currency to meet payment needs for invoices and the issuance of bank guarantees for fuel, and the payment of invoices for food products and medicines as priority products, subsequently attending to other external payment needs.
The minister pointed out that international cooperation actions will be intensified to increase the level of execution of external resource disbursements for the State Budget.
Questioned by deputies about the controversy surrounding the perks of former Presidents, the minister guaranteed that no salary increase was observed following the recent approval of the new decree: “These are the same amounts that have been paid based on the remuneration of the current President of the Republic. However, there was a need to regulate said remuneration of former Presidents within the scope of the Single Salary Table (TSU) Law.”
At issue is a decree from the Council of Ministers, in force since March 27, regulating the practice that existed until now regarding the “duties and rights of the President of the Republic after ceasing functions.”
It defines that former Presidents are entitled to 30 days of vacation paid by the State, an office, a pension, a salary, and eight vehicles, among other perks.
Source: Lusa
