The State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office, Prof. Harald Braun, and the State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Anne Ruth Herkes, are travelling to Mozambique and Tanzania from 11 to 15 March 2013. They will be accompanied by a business delegation.

Prime Minister Alberto Vaquina will receive the delegation in the Mozambican capital, Maputo. Energy Minister Salvador Namburete, Trade and Industry Minister Armando Inroga and Transportation and Communication Minister Paulo Zucula will also be available for talks. The State Secretaries will also open the offices of two major German companies in Maputo.

In Tanzania State Secretaries Herkes and Braun will conduct talks with President Jakaya Kikwete, Foreign Minister Bernhard Membe and Transport Minister Dr. Harrison Mwakyembe. To mark the opening of an exhibition on renewable energies by the German Energy Agency the delegation will meet the Minister of Energy and Minerals, Prof. Sospeter Muhongo.

The State Secretaries’ joint trip underscores the great significance which the Federal Government attaches to both political dialogue and economic cooperation with two up-and-coming African countries. External economic promotion has a crucial role to play here.

Mozambique and Tanzania have experienced consistent high economic growth in the past few years. Thanks to a forward-looking economic policy, which has been bolstered by the discovery of significant natural gas deposits and other raw materials, German companies are seeing the emergence of increasingly relevant markets and areas of cooperation alongside the development cooperation which has been in place for many decades.

The State Secretaries will be accompanied by a delegation of leading German business representatives. The delegation, whose expertise lies mainly in the fields of energy, raw materials and infrastructure, impressively reflects the economic clout of German companies: it is made up not only of global players who operate internationally but also of small and medium-sized companies, whose products and services have made them global market leaders and indeed the backbone of the German economy.