“FWe spent 12 years without flying to Lisbon, and on December 12th we restarted flights, we submitted the request to the Portuguese customs authorities to have the EOR, the European Union’s authorization document for the entry of cargo, and five months later we still haven’t had a response . But the cargo from Lisbon to Maputo goes normally”, said Sérgio Matos.
Speaking to Lusa on the sidelines of the Mozambique-Portugal Business Forum, which takes place this afternoon at the Centro Cultural de Belém, in Lisbon, the manager responsible for the restructuring of the Mozambique Airlines (LAM) highlighted that the problem is the lack of response and the delay in information provided by the Portuguese authorities.
“The process has been submitted, perhaps this is the normal delay time, but as we have no information, we are getting worried, because we are entering the fifth month of operation and we do not have authorization to bring cargo from Mozambique to Portugal”, he added .
The plane, with a capacity of 32 tons, flies empty of cargo from Maputo to Lisbon, but goes full from Lisbon to Maputo, he said.
“Our traders in Mozambique are impatient because they think it is a ban on the Portuguese side not to bring cargo, benefiting only Portuguese traders, but we, as LAM, do not see the issue like that, we just wanted to know about the minimum period or maximum it takes to obtain authorization”, added Sérgio Matos.
Asked whether TAP, which also operates direct flights between Lisbon and Maputo, has authorization to take and bring cargo, the person in charge said yes.
Previously, the president of the Confederation of Business Associations of Mozambique (CTA), Agostinho Vuma, had asked governments to harmonize legislation that promotes commercial relations and to remove obstacles and announced the impossibility of Mozambican exports to Portugal through LAM.
“To harmonize business incentive measures for greater fluidity in Portuguese-Mozambican business, for example, after the introduction of measures and economic acceleration that allowed greater demand for tourism, the opportunity arose to resume direct flights between Lisbon and Maputo, but the lack of authorization from the tax authority to send cargo from Maputo to Lisbon is a problem”, said Agostinho Vuma during his speech at the opening session of the Forum.
“Cargo from Lisbon to Maputo can go, it is allowed, but Portuguese customs does not allow Mozambican companies to send their goods to Portuguese soil”, he lamented, highlighting that “this appeal is a way of materializing our mutually advantageous relationship, of ‘win-win'”.
Asked about the number of passengers on the operation to Lisbon, which resumed in December last year, Sérgio Matos told Lusa that the occupancy rate on flights from Maputo to Lisbon is above 80%, representing between 260 and 280 people on each of the two weekly flights, while from Lisbon to Maputo there are between 200 and 240 passengers per flight.
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Tags: Portugal prevented LAM entering cargo Mozambique months
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