|Area:||799,380 sq km (308,642 sq mi)|
|Population||(2011 est.): 22,949,000|
|Head of state and government:||President Armando Guebuza, assisted by Prime Minister Aires Ali|
The Mozambican government declared 2011 as “Samora Machel Year,” marking the 25th anniversary of the death on Oct. 19, 1986, of Machel and a 33-member delegation in a plane crash near Mbuzini, just inside South Africa. At the time, the South African apartheid government had conducted a unilateral inquiry that attributed the crash to pilot error, although the Mozambican government always suspected that an assassination had taken place. At a ceremony to unveil a statue of Machel in Independence Square in Maputo, Graca Machel, his widow and the wife of Nelson Mandela, demanded that the investigation into the crash be reopened.
The ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) remained generally popular and inclusive, while the opposition Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) and Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) failed to mount any serious political challenges. The ruling party, however, was embarrassed by the WikiLeaks publication of U.S. diplomatic communications implicating high-level Mozambican officials in money laundering and drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the parliament established a committee to “modernize” the constitution, which prompted speculation by the opposition that the ruling party intended to allow the incumbent to stand for another presidential term, although no such proposal had been put forward.
Late in January unusually heavy rains in the south caused widespread flooding along the banks of the Zambezi, Limpopo, Púnguè, and Save rivers. About 100,000 people were evacuated. The damage to cropland and pasture, however, did not significantly affect agricultural production, as the main producing areas of the country were in the north.
The government made considerable progress in its economic and social plan for the year. Real GDP growth stood at 7.4%, backed by increasing foreign aid and foreign investment into minerals and infrastructure megaprojects. An important goal was to reduce poverty from an estimated 54.7% in 2009 to 40% by 2015. The government announced the possibility of introducing legislation to renegotiate megaprojects, originally signed in the late 1990s, to increase revenue. These included the Mozal aluminum smelter operated by Australian-based BHP Billiton, the gas export pipeline run by Sasol (a South African company), and the Moma titanium mine in Nampula province, operated by Kenmare Resources of Ireland. In May Brazilian mining conglomerate Vale began coal production in Moatize in the Tete province, which transformed life in a previously neglected area of the country. Further underscoring Mozambique’s economic recovery was the state visit in October of Pres. Dilma Rousseff of Brazil as part of her southern African tour. Trade with Brazil rose from $25 million in 2010 to $60 million early in the year and was expected to expand once coal exports began. In the last quarter of the year, massive gas fields were discovered off the northern coast of Mozambique, with one of the finds being hailed as the world’s largest natural gas discovery in a decade. Although the fields would not be productive for several years, the news nonetheless buoyed hopes of a future economic windfall for the country.