MAPUTO, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Mozambique and Kenya signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Maputo to boost bilateral cooperation on trade and investment on Thursday, when Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta traveled to Mozambique for a state visit.
"Witnessed the signing of two agreements covering political and economic cooperation-which will be the heart of closer cooperation between Kenya and Mozambique," wrote Kenyatta on his twitter Thursday afternoon.
The signing is aiming to combine areas of common interest with a view to increase the balance of trade, and to speed up the implementation of the African Free Trade Zone, for which both the countries were signatories in Kigali, Rwanda, last week.
"On the part of Mozambique we have identified the areas of interest, namely infrastructure, energy, agriculture and tourism, but we also added areas of interest that are related to trade with a view to increasing the trade balance between the two countries," said José Pacheco, the Mozambican Foreign Minister at the ceremony.
In turn, the Kenyan Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Monica Juma, underlined the commitment of both parties to exploit the full potential of the free trade area in Africa.
"We are committed to trying to improve our trade as well as implementing the free trade area recently signed in Kigali, Rwanda as well as the tripartite agreement we have been negotiating for some time", she said.
The Kenyan official stressed that the two countries have the task of revitalizing the joint commission of cooperation and other various areas of cooperation including the air transport, as well as trying to connect the two ports of Beira and Mombasa, and the task of strengthening cooperation in the tourism and blue economy (maritime) sectors.
On the other hand, according to Monica Juma, Kenya"would like to learn" from Mozambique the experience in mining sector to increase its contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The head of Kenya's diplomacy said her country is eager to learn from Mozambique's ability to exploit natural resources in terms of coal, gas and hydropower.
