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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MAPUTO 001260 
 
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STATE PASS OPIC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: BEXP ECON MZ
SUBJECT: Mozambique: Visit to two Northern Provincial 
Capitals - Lichinga and Nampula 
 
Ref: Maputo 1158 
 
MAPUTO 00001260  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
Sensitive But Unclassified - Handle Accordingly.  Not for 
Internet Distribution 
 
¶1. (U) This report summarizes observations from an August 28 
- September 1 trip taken by the Econ/Pol chief to Lichinga, 
the small town that serves as the capital of Niassa province 
in Mozambique's far north, and Nampula, the bustling capital 
of neighboring Nampula province.  Lichinga's most striking 
aspect is its isolation, with its distance from the coast 
and main transport corridors magnified by poor (dirt) roads 
and nearly non-existent railroad service.  It also has the 
lure of Mozambique's wild frontier, with its resources 
largely untapped.  Nampula, on the other hand, is maturing 
into the North's prosperous commercial center.  Para 10 
contains business confidential information about the OPIC- 
supported Nacala railway line. 
 
-------- 
Lichinga 
-------- 
 
¶2. (U) Lichinga sits on a plateau at 4,000 feet above sea 
level, surrounded by a 5-10 mile radius of relatively 
fertile agricultural land cleared of forest cover. 
According to one internet gazetteer, the town has a 
population of over 100,000 but this figure probably includes 
all the outlying communities - the downtown is very small 
and criss-crossed by only two or three main streets. 
Lichinga developed in the late 1960's, mainly as a 
Portuguese colonial outpost against FRELIMO rebels launching 
attacks into northern Mozambique from bases just across the 
border in Tanzania.  One resident told emboff that he 
remembers as a boy seeing lions outside train carriage 
windows on the town's outskirts.  The lions have long since 
gone, mostly shot or driven out during the post-independence 
civil war (1977-1992). 
 
¶3. (U) Lichinga is linked to the rest of the country mainly 
by a 200 km dirt road southward to Cuamba, at the bottom of 
Niassa province, which sits astride the (OPIC-supported) 
railroad line that connects Malawi with the Mozambican port 
of Nacala.  Of lesser importance is a rail spur from Cuamba 
to Lichinga that largely parallels the Cuamba - Lichinga 
road.  The Portuguese built this rail spur to Lichinga in 
the 1960's for military reasons, but it declined into 
irregular use after independence and has been very poorly 
maintained.  As tracks fell into disrepair, service declined 
from weekly to monthly to finally, in the past year, once 
every several months.  Two other links - a  road running 
eastward that is paved roughly half of the 400 km distance 
from Lichinga to Pemba, on the coast, and a dirt road 80 kms 
in length down to the Lake Niassa town of Metangula - round 
out its main transport connections.  It is worth mentioning, 
too, that travelers driving north from Lichinga 150 kms on a 
dirt road that degenerates into a track can reach the 
Tanzanian border south of the city of Songea, and that 
growing trade and traffic is reported over this frontier 
(including Tanzanians who mine small-scale gold deposits in 
the bush north of Lichinga and carry it back to Tanzania). 
 
--------------------- 
Transport Connections 
--------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Transport connections bear examination because a 
visitor to Lichinga upon arrival is soon struck by this 
provincial capital's isolation.  There is comparatively 
little traffic in the town, and on trips to the outskirts it 
seemed to emboff that the number of people pushing bicycles 
loaded with goods greatly outnumbered the few cars or trucks 
that passed.  At a roundtable hosted by emboff for local 
business leaders, speakers repeatedly groused about supply 
difficulties due to poor transport links.  According to one 
businessman from the construction sector, during the rainy 
season in 2005 the city went several months virtually 
without fuel and without any concrete, since the roads were 
 
MAPUTO 00001260  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
too muddy for trucks with heavy loads and the railway didn't 
function.  All supplies that must be trucked in are marked 
up heavily because of transport delays.  Local produce - and 
emboff was told repeatedly by various sources that the 
highlands around Lichinga could become very productive in 
grains and legumes - only trickles out of the province, 
again because of transport difficulties. 
 
-------- 
Forestry 
-------- 
 
¶5. (U) Several foreign investors have ambitious plans for 
forestry projects in Niassa province.  Eucalyptus and 
southern pine are being introduced in two separate 
plantations east and north of Lichinga.  Swedish money is 
backing one project, which already includes a small sawmill, 
while the other plantation, Tenga, is financed by a South 
African company.  Eucalyptus grows quickly, with seedlings 
becoming trees ready for cutting in only seven years.  Both 
plantations include eucalyptus trees that are already 
several years old, and the investors expect to be harvesting 
eucalyptus trees starting in 2010.  Pine, however, will take 
20 years to mature and thus represents a much longer term 
investment.  At both locations emboff was told that viable 
(non-dirt) road links or a working railroad would be 
essential to their business, since most of the wood would be 
sold outside the province. 
 
---------------- 
Manda Wilderness 
---------------- 
 
¶6. (U) Emboff met with Patrick Simkin, manager of the Manda 
Wilderness lodge north of Cobue, a small town lying on Lake 
Niassa about 100 kms north of Lichinga.  Simkin, who has 
been running the lodge for nearly a decade, said that last 
year the Manda Wilderness concession won an award in Europe 
for its success in integrating the community with its 
wilderness preservation efforts.   Travel to and from the 
lodge from Lichinga is arduous and expensive - requiring 
four hours via a 4-wheel drive car down to the lake and then 
a 45 minute boat ride.  This is the main reason that most of 
the lodge guests arrive via Malawi.  The small Malawian 
island of Likoma, in the lake off Cobue, has an airstrip, 
and guests frequently fly in there from Lilongwe.  Another 
favorite arrangement is to ride the Lake Niassa ferry around 
the lake, getting off for two days at Manda and then getting 
back on when the ferry makes its next circuit.  Simkin 
reported that the tourist business was doing quite well, 
with August his busiest month ever because of the European 
holiday season. 
 
---------- 
Macadamias 
---------- 
 
¶7. (U) Niassa province holds what may count as Mozambique's 
most mature macadamia nut plantation.  Emboff visited the 
2,500 hectare site, which lies 150 km east of Lichinga near 
the road to Pemba.  Six South African investors are partners 
in the project, all of them from the Nelspruit area in South 
Africa where there are numerous macadamia groves.  While the 
first nuts will not be harvested for several more years, the 
project manager is hopeful that the investment will prove 
very successful and enable them to double the area planted 
in macadamia.  He reported that the provincial government 
has been very cooperative, causing no undue delays provided 
paperwork was in order. 
 
¶8. (U) The macadamia plantation manager's father told emboff 
that he had just started a 500 hectare jatropha plantation 
nearby (which emboff did not see), and that he had great 
expectations for this product in the near future as a source 
of bio-diesel (jatropha oil plus ethanol can easily be 
turned into diesel).  He reported that he had already begun 
to receive inquiries from prospective buyers in Germany and 
the US. 
 
MAPUTO 00001260  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
 
------- 
Nampula 
------- 
 
¶9. (U) Nampula is a growing urban center located at the 
eastern foot of the hilly uplands, about 100 kms inland from 
the coast.  According to the same internet gazetteer 
mentioned in para 2, its population has grown to nearly 
400,000 (a figure that, similarly, no doubt includes 
surrounding communities).  It lies at the intersection of 
the country's main north-south highway and the east-west 
railway line linking the deep-water port of Nacala with 
Malawi.  Nampula is a bustling city by Mozambican standards, 
to say nothing of a comparison with remote Lichinga.  The 
hotel where emboff stayed in the center of town had a busy 
breakfast dining room, and shares its premises with a 
several-story high block of newly opened shops and offices. 
Two other impressive tall glass and steel hotels are being 
built.  The governor of Nampula province spoke of economic 
progress in both the city and province, while at the same 
time - as is the wont of officials in Mozambique - appealing 
for assistance for a whole litany of projects, from wells to 
roads to health care centers.  Emboff was impressed by 
several Nampula city council members, who described in 
detail some of the infrastructure challenges they face in 
providing water and sewage services to the rapidly growing 
urban population.  (Comment: They were seemingly unaware of 
planning by the GRM for water and sanitation work in Nampula 
under the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact expected 
to be signed next year.  Embassy recommends MCC 
representatives meet with Nampula city council members to 
review MCC's objectives the next time they are in Nampula. 
End comment.) 
 
-------------- 
Nacala Railway 
-------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) While in Nampula emboQ met with Fernando Couto, 
one of the principal private investors in the consortium 
operating the OPIC-supported Nacala railway line, the 
Corridor Desenvolvimento do Norte (CDN).  Couto relayed that 
one of the two American investors in the consortium, the 
Railway Development Corporation (RDC), had agreed verbally 
to sell its shares to Couto.  RDC wanted out, he said, now 
that the consortium would not be bought out by the Brazilian 
coal giant Companhia do Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD).  With the 
prospect of becoming even more invested in CDN, Couto said 
he was in Nampula to prepare to take over managing the 
railroad directly.  One of his immediate goals, he added, 
was to improve service on the Lichinga spur, and he told 
emboff that he hoped to have a train running up to Lichinga 
in several weeks time.  (Note - He succeeded.  According to 
press reports, a CDN locomotive arrived in Lichinga on 
September 16, needing only 27 hours to climb the 200 km 
route up from Cuamba to Lichinga.  Previous trips had taken 
as long as several weeks due to the need to repair the track 
as the train moved up the line.  End Note.) 
 
------- 
Cashews 
------- 
 
¶11. Emboff called on Antonio Miranda, who manages a large 
cashew processing plant in Nampula environs, for a report on 
efforts to revive Mozambique's cashew processing industry. 
Miranda was very upbeat about recent developments, saying 
that his and a half dozen other plants were processing 
increasing volumes, well on their way to approaching levels 
last seen in the mid-1990's.  He said that in 2005 
Mozambique processed 50,000 tons.  In several years time the 
figure would be 100,000 tons.  Miranda reported that he also 
was trying to tap the macadamia market, and had planted 
several thousand hectares in macadamias in the Gurue area of 
neighboring Zambezia province.  Asked what he thought of the 
prospects for jatropha as a source of bio-diesel, Miranda 
was not very positive.  He pointed out that promoting bio- 
 
MAPUTO 00001260  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
diesel involved much more than just growing jatropha: diesel 
processing plants would be necessary, ethanol would have to 
be imported, and arrangements would be required with fuel 
companies now serving the diesel market.  He said he had 
opted not to get on the jatropha bandwagon for these 
reasons. 
 
-------- 
Chickens 
-------- 
 
¶12.  Emboff's last stop in Nampula was at a chicken hatchery 
outside of the city run by an ex-Zimbabwean white farmer 
named Cunningham.  Cunningham was very enthusiastic about 
the prospects for raising chickens in Mozambique, which he 
believed offered better agricultural conditions for chicken 
rearing than his native Zimbabwe.  While giving a tour of 
his new facility, a large warehouse with several incubator 
machines imported from the United States, he said he would 
soon be building a slaughterhouse where chickens would be 
killed and plucked and the meat packaged for sale locally 
and export.  In the interim, he planned to distribute chicks 
to farmers in the community, with the promise to buy them 
back once fully grown.  Through this "out grower" scheme, 
his chicken farm would provide an income to hundreds of 
local Mozambicans. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶13.  The economic development of Lichinga, and indeed all of 
Niassa province, is constrained by its poor transport links. 
The Swedes have funded the paving of roughly half the 
distance along the road from Lichinga to Pemba, but the 
vital road and rail connection to Cuamba still awaits 
assistance.  CDN's recent success in running a train to 
Lichinga is an encouraging step, but improving the road is 
probably much more important than rehabilitating the 
railroad.  Nampula's immediate economic prospects are much 
brighter, and could offer investment and trade opportunities 
for American business. 
 
Raspolic