Mozambique’s June 2026 external file: a US$320m Q2 goods gap and US$3.46bn in reserves

June 30, 2026

Wordless fine-line illustration: Two cargo ships passing in a channel, one riding low and heavy with containers while the other rides high, and a customs officer's scale balanced precariously on the quay between them

Half a year in, the five panels of the external file agree on one thing: the ordinary economy’s import bill is growing faster than its dollar earnings.

Mozambique’s goods deficit widened from US$88.7 million in the first quarter of 2026 to US$319.6 million in the second, as imports rose to US$2,214.1 million and exports held near US$1,894.5 million. Net international reserves closed June at US$3,463.8 million, down US$40.0 million on the month, and foreign direct investment slowed from US$1,328.4 million in the first quarter to US$590.0 million in the second.

The half-year reading is more balanced than the second-quarter deficit alone suggests. Without the early IMF repayment in March, reserves would be higher than they were at the end of 2025. But the quarter’s trade table shows the ordinary economy running a gap that the large projects do not cover, and the banks’ own foreign-exchange book turned from net buyer to net seller.

Reserves over six months: the IMF payment explains the whole fall

From December to June reserves fell about US$659m, less than the US$698.6m paid to the Fund.

The Banco de Moçambique’s (BdM) July summary closes June at US$3,463.8 million, opening from a restated US$3,503.8 million. The restated closing balance for December was US$4,123.1 million, so the stock is US$659.3 million lower over six months, a fall of 16%. The cover footnote repeats May’s pair: 2.2 months against all imports, 4.5 once the large projects are set aside.

Adding back the US$698.6 million that went to the IMF on 23 March gives about US$4,162 million, which is US$39 million above the December level. That is the fair statement of the half: the payment moved a liability off the state’s books and took the visible stock down by about the same amount, and the rest of the year’s flows were close to neutral, with a small monthly loss in June. A reader who compares only the December and June headline figures would conclude that the buffer weakened by 16%; a reader who removes the one-off payment would see a buffer that held its ground while the trade account deteriorated underneath it.

The second quarter’s goods table

Imports outside the large projects jumped 52% from the first quarter, while the projects’ own imports halved.

The BdM’s August summary carries both 2026 quarters. Exports were US$1,853.0 million in the first quarter and US$1,894.5 million in the second. Imports were US$1,941.7 million and US$2,214.1 million. Exports from outside the large projects rose from US$382.1 million to US$421.0 million, a gain of 10%, but imports excluding the projects went from US$1,248.0 million to US$1,893.7 million, a rise of 52%.

The large projects moved the opposite way. Their exports were flat, US$1,471.0 million and then US$1,473.4 million, while their imports fell from US$693.7 million to US$320.4 million. The result is a swing in their net contribution from about US$777 million to about US$1,153 million, and an ordinary-economy gap that grew from about US$866 million to about US$1,473 million. Put as a ratio, exports outside the projects paid for 31% of the ordinary economy’s imports in the first quarter and 22% in the second. The mechanism is plain: when that ratio falls, the shortfall has to be met by project surpluses, aid, loans or the central bank’s stock, and every one of those sources moved the wrong way or stood still in the quarter.

Financing: project money slowed sharply

Foreign direct investment was US$1.92bn in the half against US$2.53bn a year earlier.

The same summary lists foreign direct investment of US$1,328.4 million in the first quarter and US$590.0 million in the second. In the second quarter, equity contributed US$191.5 million and other capital, meaning loans and trade credit, US$398.5 million, of which US$355.7 million went to large projects. The first half of 2025 had brought US$1,626.3 million and US$902.6 million, or US$2,528.9 million together.

That is a fall of about 24% in half-year terms. The point for the file is the pairing: a wider ordinary-economy import gap and a slower inflow of project credit arrive together, and both must be met from the same stock of reserves and bank dollars.

The banks’ own dollar book turned

In the second quarter banks sold US$2,028.4m to clients and bought US$2,018.1m from them.

According to the Bulletin of Monetary and Foreign Exchange Markets as reported by Economia & Mercado, interbank foreign-exchange volume grew about 263% on the first quarter and bank-client business by about 19%. The RTP account of the same bulletin gives banks’ purchases of US$2,018.1 million, up 15.1%, and sales of US$2,028.4 million, up 22.5%, with total business of US$4,675 million.

In the first quarter the banks bought US$1,753.7 million and sold US$1,656.0 million, a net purchase of about US$98 million. In the second they were net sellers by about US$10 million. A bank that sells more than it buys draws on its own dollar position and on interbank funding, and that is the practical meaning of a quarter in which import demand ran ahead of export earnings.

The June street price and the half-year file

The premium held at 9.7% at the end of June, so the queue for dollars has not cleared.

On 30 June the BdM reference quotation was unchanged at 63.27 for purchases and 64.54 for sales. Banks quoted 63.30 and 64.63; exchange houses quoted 69.10 and 70.77, an offer 9.7% above the reference. The bulletin, as RTP reported it, has the rate closing June at 63.90 meticais per dollar against an official 64.01.

Close the half-year file with the pairs that matter: reserves with and without the IMF payment, the ordinary-economy gap by quarter, FDI split by equity and credit, the banks’ net dollar position and the premium. A business planning the second half should assume that dollars for imports stay rationed, price its contracts accordingly, and press its bank for a dated allocation on every large order.