More Japanese food aid promised

The Japanese government is to provide Mozambique with rice valued at $7.1 million under an agreement signed in Maputo on 10 January by Mozambican Deputy Foreign Minister Eduardo Koloma and Japanese ambassador Eiji Hashimoto.

The rice is commercial food aid – that is, it will be sold on the Mozambican market through the normal commercial channels, and the money raised will then be spent on various social development programmes, agreed between the two governments.

Speaking at the end of the ceremony, Koloma said that the donation strengthens the partnership between the two countries in the pursuit of the objectives of the 2008 Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).

The rice is not Japanese, but will be acquired in countries such as Thailand and the United States. It will arrive in Mozambique during 2012, and the Mozambican and Japanese authorities will decide exactly where it should be sold.

Japan has been providing food aid to Mozambique since 1977, and the cumulative value of this aid is now about $160 million.