MAPTO, MOZAMBIQUE — On a leisurely Saturday afternoon in Maputo, people line up at refreshment stands dotted around the meeting venue, which hosts Mozambique’s biggest annual trade fair. But one young woman is trying out another tuck, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and putting a drink tray in her hand.
“Delicious and nutritious Ludmila Malambe” presents the branding of shirts written in Portuguese under the illustration of baobab fruit juice. The photo reflects the plastic cups on her tray – everything is full and sold for pops of 100 methicals ($1.50) as everything goes through a crowded pavilion looking for nasty customers.
After spinning a few times, her tray is cleared. She passes through an outdoor arena in the heart of the venue, selling soft drinks and juices across the espresso kiosk and food stalls, and then passing the main security check, which flashes her entrance wristband before leaving the gate. She pauses on a very paved sidewalk, passing before a rush of cars and motorcycles crosses the other side.
There, the rough sandy pathway became a temporary home for dozens of noisy pavement stalls and a prosperous informal economy selling food, cosmetics and clothing.
At the modest juice stall, she stops, puts down trays, and passes the money she made in the exhibition venue to her boss, Vania Pessan this week.
Pessane owns Ludmila Malambe, a recently registered, emerging part-time business that sells juices and other Malambe products made from local Baobab tree fruits.
“Malambe is extremely popular. Every Mozambican knows it,” Pessan says, adding the latest revenue to his waist bag before picking up a five-liter plastic bottle and decanting the Malambe into a half-dozen cups.
Her assistant loads new supplies into her trays before returning to the venue across the busy sandy roads, looking for more customers.
Last week, within the 60th Maputo International Trade Fair (FACIM), official vendors and established businesses paid thousands of meticulous to set up stores in their coveted booths. Meanwhile, outside, small shops and unofficial sellers also seized the opportunity.
Some unofficial vendors told Al Jazeera that they either closed their regular business in the middle of Maputo or found someone else to staff for a week while selling products outside of Facim. But others like Pessan do formal office work and take part in events like this for their side’s business when they pop up.
“The international events in Maputo are very good for small businesses,” she says. “Next month we’re holding a tourist event, a very big international event. Every event we know is happening – we’re going there.”
Pessan hopes that Marambe will one day put her and her business on the map.
“Drinking water for everyone”
Mozambique is a southern African country rich in resources, including minerals, gas, and natural beauty like beaches and reserves. However, the country is struggling economically. According to the World Bank, in 2025, more than 70% of the 34 million population lived for less than $2.15 a day in 2025, with about 80% employed in the informal sector.
But despite the challenges, in Maputo and across other cities, residents say they have a strong sense of entrepreneurship, and officials see opportunities on the horizon.
“Yeah, Mozambique has a high unemployment rate,” but that’s not the case here,” argues Antonio Grispos, Mozambique’s Secretary of Commerce. “When you’re in Europe and say that 20% of the population is unemployed, it’s actually unemployed. In Mozambique, people can unemployed in official businesses, but they have occupations,” he explains to Facim’s Al Jazeera.
“These people don’t sit at home and wait until the government pays something. No, they do other things. They sell cash, clothes, they sell something on the street.
Outside of Facim, its sense of entrepreneurship is on display. A 33-year-old Cardate Massingue Barbecues chicken skewers located on one corner of Sandy Street is located in a small stand next to other food vendors. She once worked in a supermarket in the city, but lost her job last year. Her husband passed away this July. She leaves three children to raise herself, and she runs a small food business in the city to make money.
She decided to try her luck with Facim again this year and find new customers. That’s “really busy,” says Massingue. “It’s a very good environment and I’ll be back next year,” she adds, but she laments the state of the economy in general, which is not the easiest for the majority of young people.
Grispos acknowledges the challenges Mozambique faces, including the instability in North Cabo delgado and the turbulence that followed last year’s elections.
However, he is optimistic about the rest of 2025 and says that with government support, all people in the community can thrive. Through investment, opportunities and education.
“We have to choose. We can drink a few fish or drinking water for anyone. So we prefer the second,” says Grispos.
Under Daniel Chapo’s leadership, he says, it is a “clear vision for the path of development.” Some of these include investments, including a $2 billion partnership agreement signed with a Qatari investment company last week. Part of this includes an energy company that will restart its LNG projects in Cabo Delgado, which has been suspended more than a security threat.
But “it’s not just numbers,” adds Grispos. “It’s about sharing this (the Mozambique resource) and it’s going to be visible to the community.”
Mozambique is looking for more foreign investment, he says. However, in resource-rich areas, entities that adhere to the “laws of local content.” Through it, profits from the valuable resources of the country are also used to nurture those who own them, as they must be employed to hire Mozambicans from surrounding communities.
“The poor guy needs to feel it on the table (profit) plate,” says Grispos. “Therefore, the community must benefit from it (resources). You cannot take our resources, and the community cannot see them.”
Beyond foreign partnerships, the government is also investing more in local businesses, he says, pointing to the $40 million mutual guarantee fund that President Chapo launched a few days ago to support small businesses.
The funds directly support businesses, but some money will also be allocated for training and financial literacy projects, he says.
“You can’t give someone some money without financial literacy. Money goes in two days. You need to teach… because they need to grow,” says Grispos.
“I need support.”
Young Mozambicans are eager to more opportunities and enthusiastic about their work, some told Al Jazeera on Facim.
Recent university graduates spoke about the Youth Employment Summit in Maputo in early August. Hundreds of enthusiastic job seekers have arrived at the venue, they said, only to find that they don’t represent some basic booths and most of the employment sector. “Some people took a break from work to attend events and found nothing in return,” the alumni said.
Working at her food stall outside of Facim, Massingue said: “We need a lot of support.”
But she does not mean handouts. She says that the Mozambican wants to get it done and points to her business that she has started herself. But she hopes that the government can get things done to help people succeed.
“Maybe they can become self-employed so that young people can be certified to create their own jobs and do their own things so that they can create opportunities,” suggests Massingue.
A few metres down a bustling sandy road, Pessan works at a juice stall. She slices the orange pile in half and then feeds it to a manual juice press to fill the cup. Talking in Portuguese, she gives the cup to the customer, who passes over a pile of methicals, continuing along the way.
Her third year is on sale on Facim, but her first year in the suburbs. She has to pay to rent an unofficial stall a week, but she says the cost of renting a booth inside the previous year was much higher.
In this way, she can welcome customers both inside and outside the exhibition. With the help of an assistant, take the cup of Marambe directly to the customer inside.
“Facim is a very good idea. You can find someone here who wants what we have,” she spoke about trade and investment events, adding that it’s easy to create a “partnership” especially within the halls of the exhibition. However, she hopes that many of the participating representatives will leave to support informal food stalls outside.
“They don’t come outside the event,” she lamentes. “They just go to the stands and try to interact with and invest with other established businesses.”
Still, she acknowledges the government’s move to help fund small businesses, even though she’s not sure if she’ll apply.
For her, the key is not only providing funds and investments, but also using the right industry to help the typical Mozambican flourish.
Pessan sells a series of juices at food stalls and is a public sector employee who works in the city of Maputo every day in management positions. But Malambe is her “focus” and her “true passion.” That’s what she feels the country should work to promote.
In Manica, Mozambique, they grow fields of ancient baobab trees with bulbous bases and almost bare branches. And marambe fruit grows on these trees. Pessan sources them and uses other natural ingredients to process them into drinks, jams, yogurt and, more recently, chocolate.
“We don’t have baobabs in many countries,” she says. “There are few countries doing the same thing. If you get the opportunity to go there, you can show people what Mozambique has. You can promote what we have here.”
She has dreams of growing her business. It first became a nationwide chain of stores, and then global.
“I want to be an international brand of Marambe,” she says.
But to get there, we need a roadmap for investment and government support.
“If I find someone who can do this same business at a higher place than I can see, I think it will help me grow,” she says. “The government should promote external businesses, so we can show what we have, what we are, what we can do with the natural resources we have here.”
