Mozambique’s cashew nut exports brought in $53 million in six months, more than the whole of last year, making it the country’s main agricultural product sold abroad, according to data compiled by Lusa on Friday.

According to a report from the Bank of Mozambique, the country exported agricultural products worth 562.3 million dollars (531 million euros) throughout 2022, including 51.7 million dollars (48. 7 million euros) in cashew nuts.

In the first quarter of 2023, this export amounted to 50.8 million dollars (47.9 million euros) and another 2.2 million dollars (two million euros) in the second quarter.

This performance already translates into the best year of cashew nut sales in Mozambique, which since 2016 has fluctuated between 14.8 million dollars (14 million euros) in 2018 and 51.7 million dollars (48.7 million euros) last year.

For much of the last century, Mozambique was the world’s largest producer of cashew nuts and received the continent’s first processing factory in 1960, an activity that declined after independence in 1975.

Currently, it is estimated that more than one million Mozambican families grow and sell cashew and the processing sector employs more than 8,000 people in the country.

Mozambique exported 181.8 million dollars (171.4 million euros) in agricultural products in the six months already recorded this year, less than 5% of the almost 3,715 million dollars (3,502 million euros) of total sales abroad in this year. period.

Globally, Mozambique broke the export record in 2022, reaching a volume of practically 8,281 million dollars (7,808 million euros), driven by sales of natural gas.

Source: Lusa