Prices fell 0.26% in July 2026 and annual inflation eased to 7.48%. Cheaper vegetables carried the fall while maize rose 5.3%. What a retailer should pass on, and what to lock in.
Section
Economics
Mozambique’s trade table without Mozal: aluminium bars fall from US$371.4m to US$2.9m
BdM’s August summary shows aluminium bar exports at US$2.9m in the second quarter against US$371.4m in the first, yet total exports rose 2.2%. Coal and gas replaced the smelter.
July 2026: Mozambique’s dollar ledger halves, with State project receipts down to US$6.2m
Reserve outflows fell to US$261.7m in July from US$445.6m in June, inflows to US$213.0m from US$440.7m, and State project receipts to US$6.2m. Banks turned net suppliers.
Transport and Food Push Inflation to 4.2% in March
Botswana’s headline inflation rose to 4.2% in March 2026 from 4.0%, with the trimmed mean at 4.8% signalling more durable underlying price pressure.
Chinese zones: A modest base for Africa’s export story
Chinese industrial zones are cast as engines of Africa’s export ambitions, but the recorded jobs and investment are modest, and the zones matter more as a template than a triumph.
Decree 31/2026: Mozambique rewrites the rules for who may generate, wire and sell power
Boletim da República No. 127 of 7 July 2026 carries Decree 31/2026, the new electricity concessions regulation. We set out what it replaces and what to do now.
Industrial parks: Value-chain infrastructure, or just serviced land
Industrial parks are sold as value-chain infrastructure, but a fenced plot with power and a road is only real estate until firms cluster and a supply chain forms inside it.
Trade fairs as pipelines: turning expo handshakes into SME orders
A four-day expo can announce billions in deals. The harder question is how many of those handshakes survive contact with shipping schedules, payment terms and a small firm’s first export.
China’s vanishing factory jobs: Africa’s chance, if it can catch them
The World Bank has floated 85 million manufacturing jobs leaving China as wages rise. Whether Africa captures a meaningful share is a question of readiness, not destiny.