Agnieszka Flak and William Mapote Maputo

MOZAMBIQUE was “happy” with the strength of the metical, the world’s best-performing currency this year against the dollar, and had no plans to weaken it, Finance Minister Manuel Chang said yesterday.

The nation was considering launching a debut international bond to fund an ambitious infrastructure programme, although external conditions were not favourable at the moment, Chang said.

Priority would be given to raising domestic finance, and there were no plans to open up its nascent treasury bill and bond market to foreigners.

“There is a lot of appetite among Mozambicans to invest in domestic bonds,” he said.

Mozambique has a domestic bond market with maturities up to five years. It is rated B+ by Standard & Poor’s and B by Fitch Ratings.

The metical is up 21 percent against the dollar this year, far outstripping rival performers such as Japan’s yen, which is up 6 percent year to date. Chang dismissed concerns its level was hurting exporters.

“We are monitoring the metical, but for now the currency is under control and at a level that we need. We are happy with where it is and would like to keep it that way,” he said.

The government would only act if the currency proved to have a major impact on exporters, which for now was not the case, he said.

The start this year of coal exports by Brazilian mining giant Vale and major planned investments in infrastructure and farming meant the economy might also exceed its already pacy growth forecasts for 2011 and 2012, he added.

“We are still expecting 7.2 percent for this year and 7.5 percent for next year, but we think that both forecasts can be upgraded a bit because of export of coal and some infrastructure projects such as railways,” he said.

Besides Vale, other mining firms in the country include Rio Tinto, Ncondezi Coal, Beacon Hill Resources, ENRC, Nippon Steel, Posco, Coal India, Mozambi Coal and Jindal Steel & Power. – Reuters