11 Jul Interview with Levin M. Born , President, American Chamber of Commerce, Mozambique
How does the chamber work to strengthen US-Mozambican economic ties and what is your strategic vision for the future development of this relationship?
AmCham at its core is intended to always maintain American character in all of the locations where it is present. Within our rules as the AmCham in Mozambique, we have to maintain a majority of US company membership. That allows us to work with those companies to communicate effectively with the Mozambican government on things that could improve the business environment, things that are potentially limiting or restricting investment from these companies, things that are operationally challenging for these companies, things that could help open up the market for a lot of these companies: whether there be rules or concessions or other policy changes and adjustments that could be implemented. That’s really our core role. There’s a social element, there’s a lot of networking and we like to facilitate many opportunities for businesses to meet each other. We run events that have become more and more popular, pretty quickly get sold out and where we’re also kind of matchmaking between local companies and the American companies. We’re trying to make sure that that whole world is productive, engaging and maintains a very high caliber of conversation.
Strategically going forward, we’ve recently reached a membership number of 45 companies from a founding core group of 10, thanks almost entirely to the diligent efforts of our executive director. This now puts us in a position where we’re significant, we have a strong voice and we have a voice that is now listened to. We intend to continue that discourse and improve the quality of content and information that we’re providing to the policymakers in Mozambique to ensure that they can guide their adjustments in the direction that we think would be beneficial.
What is your outlook on the current state of the Mozambican economy, its promising prospects and the specific challenges that US businesses might face in this evolving market?
We run a survey amongst our members pretty consistently and we work with some of our larger members who are very good at these things, like EY and PwC to get a sense of the pulse of businesses in general in Mozambique and what they think the future outlook is. There’s a lot of positivity in the market currently. We’re seeing a lot of movement in the right direction. We’re seeing a lot of action being taken beyond just conversations around positive changes. There are still some overarching concerns of course. The three main ones that come up in conversation frequently are immigration policy; Central Bank issues, in particular import and export of money; and inconsistency of the application of the rules, especially new rules across the different regions of the country.
We work closely with our members to make sure we have a good idea of what it is that’s affecting their businesses. Those are again really always at the top three of that list, which is usually a solid 10 key concerns.
Nevertheless, we have a very positive outlook. We are very confident that the Mozambican government will continue in its current route of improving the business environment. This is not just for American businesses, it’s for all businesses from all countries. We’re seeing real action at this point and that’s making us very confident in the direction we’re going in.
Could you tell us some accounts of what you have achieved so far in bridging relations between companies and in what sector?
Keeping in mind that we have been in our growth phase since only the end of 2021 so our ability to have impacted specific companies’ existence in Mozambique is not too large quite yet. One of the nice things about being an accredited US Chamber of Commerce is that we work very closely with the US Embassy and its commercial services and we align on a lot of levels. We don’t speak on their behalf and they don’t speak on our behalf, but we do coordinate closely to ensure that we are saying the same thing and speaking the same language when we interact with the Mozambican government. In that sense, we’ve been very successful at ensuring that that communication remains open and that the information is shared very openly.
Currently, we’re advocating to help release some funds that have been restricted for export from the companies. These are capital gains that need to be exported. That seems to be going in a pretty good direction. Mostly at this point, it’s really about just having that engagement and having that discourse.
One of the things that we’re also looking at doing, which will be very effective, is working very closely with the other business chambers in Mozambique that are long-established. These aren’t just foreign ones; these are also local ones such as the Confederation of Economic Associations and CCMUSA which is another US-Mozambican Chamber of Commerce that has been around a bit longer than ours. Keep in mind though that we’re the accredited US Chamber, which means that we have that additional backing from the US Chamber in Washington, DC and are able to liaise closely and coordinate with the US government in our efforts and energies.
How is AmCham working to enhance Mozambique’s global competitiveness and its position on the international stage?
One of the core tenets of being a US Chamber is believing that, with all of its faults, failings, successes and positives, one thing that Americans are very good at is business. We are extremely efficient at allocating capital, we’re very good at generating profits and we’re very pragmatic in terms of how we build businesses. But that also means that we’re very efficient in how we make our decisions and where we choose our markets.
US companies talk really big numbers. When the Americans show up, sometimes it’s outside of the scale or scope that a lot of even countries can fathom. We had a funny example. We got an outreach from a small family-owned business in the United States. We started digging into them and the turnover was $350 million per year. That’s a small family-owned business in the US but it’s a big company in Mozambique. The scale becomes an issue sometimes.
Our members are American companies that are already present in Mozambique. The idea with them is they’re trying to see ways in which they can be more competitive on the global scale and build and become more sustainable with their presence.
Our job is to try to make sure that the Mozambican government understands what is important to these American businesses so that they can continue to expand and continue to maintain their presence in Mozambique. That’s where we might contribute somewhat to making Mozambique more competitive.
The discourse with the current Mozambican government is excellent. The ministers and the people who are in charge are extremely highly skilled. We’ve had phenomenal engagements with them at a level that we’re thrilled about. The openness in particular to having these conversations, the readiness to listen and the ability to then push it in the direction of potential change or even real change is very exciting to us right now.
Mozambique’s diverse and growing market reveals significant investment potential across various sectors, from energy to infrastructure and manufacturing as Mozambique’s exports sector becomes crucial to its economic growth. How is AmCham helping members develop and strengthen the export industry?
Exports of natural gas are going to obliterate everything else that Mozambique has in hand currently. That could be a medium-term reality. But, generally speaking, the intent right now is to ensure that there’s diversification of the economy around what that initial boost can give us. In that sense, Mozambique has a lot of potential for exports, but there are a lot of historically imposed tariffs and other controls that may make it difficult for some of those industries to thrive, in particular agriculture. Cashew and other nut production suffer a lot from some of the export restrictions that may be applied.
Mozambique is amongst the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. How is AmCham facilitating and promoting green investments and sustainable business among its members?
American companies developed a keen interest in attending and better understanding the economic impact that climate change would have on their investments, on their bottom line ultimately. I can’t think of a single American company that does not have a strategy and a lot of attention put towards how to mitigate, how to plan for the future and how to ensure that things are improving. We find that one of the nice things in American companies is that they tend to already have a lot of that sort of eco-responsibility baked into what they do and how they do it. They are still profit seekers, no doubt about that, but they put a lot of thought into what the impact of climate change could be on their businesses and in particular places like Mozambique, which has increased vulnerability to a lot of extreme weather in particular.
If people are going to look at investing in large facilities and multi-billion-dollar construction projects, they want to make sure that those can be properly managed, that they’re safe from climate change, or as safe as possible. We find that the discourse around there is mature and it’s already baked into how they do things.
Do you have any final message to the readers of USA Today?
Mozambique is a fascinating country because of how unique it is. That has to do with its history which is complex and fascinating. It had a lot of different influences on it. It has to do with its geography. It’s a massive country with a massive coastline and is one of the core access points for a lot of landlocked countries on the continent. It has to do with its current government and governance. It has to do with some of the recent discoveries around natural resources. It has to do as well with its cultural diversity. It’s one of those places that has an opportunity to become one of the greatest countries and one of the most performing economies the world has ever seen. But it needs a lot of good positive voices and it leads to a lot of sustainable and long-term commitment from the businesses that show up.
So come and take a look. At AmCham, our job is to be the first port of call: any questions, we’re always available to you and we’d welcome you to come, knock on the door and see what we can help you out with. At the end of the day, we are aiming to maintain and even grow the importance of our voice as we join the chorus for a better business environment in Mozambique. A better business environment doesn’t mean fewer rules. We’re not saying no rules, we’re saying help us figure out how to make this a viable proposition because all the other pieces are there: market potential, export potential, import potential, manufacturing, labor force and a young population. All those things look good.