Maputo, Mozambique, 22 Sept – The Special Economic Area of Nacala is in 2009 scheduled to have a master plan to guide its development over the next few years, the director of the Office for Economic Areas with Accelerated Development (Gazeda) said in Maputo.

Danilo Nalá told newspaper Notícias that a consulting mission contracted by the Japanese Bank for International Development had recently been in Macala, where it collected information to prepare the master plan.

“We have been working on preparing the legal basis to move ahead with the Nacala special economic area. Usually these are long term projects and that means attracting anchor investments to develop a certain region, in this case the two districts of Nacal and Nacal-a-Velha,” he said.

According to the director-general of Gazeda, the expectation is that this preliminary phase will end in October after which there will be negotiations with the Japanese bank in order to move ahead with a more in-depth study that will determine what to do and where.

“We still don’t have an end date for conclusion of the study. We want to decide when to meet with the Japanese bank, but we hope that in January we will have everything ready.

The biggest attraction of the Nacala Special Economic Area is the deep water port and respective corridor that make it possible to distribute products (import and export) without constraints.

The Nacala Special Economic Area was set up last year and includes the districts of Nacala-a-Velha and Nacala-Porto. (macauhub)