"There are very high interest rates and excessive bureaucracy for those who want to start a business," Paulo Oliveira, vice president of the Mozambique-Portugal Chamber of Commerce, told Lusa on the sidelines of the 19th Annual Conference of the Private Sector (CASP), which took place this week in Maputo. He also highlighted corruption and delays in judicial processes as constraints to investing in the country, and therefore advocated for a dynamic and speedy justice system that provides guarantees to entrepreneurs, not only Portuguese ones. Even so, and despite the difficulties mentioned, Paulo Oliveira states that the country is fertile for investments and needs various types of services, in which Portugal can be the gateway for Mozambique to explore the European market. "We have to look at Portugal as a gateway to the European market (...). But when Portuguese companies look at us, they can't just see 30 million potential buyers, they have to look at the bloc we are part of, which is SADC [Southern African Development Community], with great potential," says the vice president of the Mozambique-Portugal Chamber of Commerce. Despite there already being a significant trade exchange market between the two countries, Oliveira admits that the volume of business has been falling since 2021, due to cyclones, the armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado and the Covid-19 pandemic. "This has an effect on the economy and purchasing power has decreased. It should be noted that foreign direct investment in the country has fallen and the imports we have been making from Portugal have reduced," he points out. The Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA) acknowledged last April that Mozambican exports to Portugal are falling, considering that ten years ago they were worth just over 100 million dollars (92 million euros) to Portugal, five times more than they currently export, while imports have fallen by half in the same period. Luís Miguel, chairman of the board of directors (PCA) of Adicional Moçambique, a logistics company with Portuguese capital that has been operating in the country for 11 years, acknowledges to Lusa the expectation of increasing the value of imports from Portugal. "Unlike what happens in other geographies, the problem is not related to a lack of opportunities in Mozambique, there is even an excess," he says, pointing out the need for more companies to help in the value chain: "So that we don't have to do everything." "Mozambique is fertile in opportunities. Investors must come with maturity and a long-term investment plan. Things don't work if they come without the will to learn," he adds. In the logistics sector, in which he operates, with 90 employees and warehouses in all provinces, he has faced challenges due to insufficient rail and port infrastructure and the degradation of the main roads, making it difficult to move goods. "Doing logistics is a great challenge, the country is huge. If we think about transporting the territory of Mozambique, with 2,500 square kilometres, to Europe, we would be talking about a distance from Lisbon to Warsaw [...]. We need the roads to work," he acknowledges. "We keep hearing about lines of financing (...). We do not use banks and at the moment we think it is difficult. If we could have access to more resources with subsidised rates, we would take advantage of it to accelerate our growth," he says. For the chairman of the board of directors of the Portuguese company Sumol+Compal, Fernando Oliveira, with 150 employees in Mozambique and a capital of 11 million euros, financing "is one of the great difficulties". "Because the interest rates are quite high. Therefore, investors need to bring their capital to invest in Mozambique," he says. Operating in Mozambique for 11 years, he says that there are business opportunities, but warns: "The market is attractive, but don't come looking for quick results." Read Also: SIM card fraud network dismantled in Mozambique. There are 28 detainees (Portuguese version)