Portuguese head to former African colony to escape euro crisis
By
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sudarsan-raghavan/2011/02/22/ABkvITI_page.htm
l> Sudarsan Raghavan, Published: November 16, 2012
MAPUTO, Mozambique — When Marcio Charata lost his well-
paying job in southern Portugal two years ago, he fired off résumés to all
his contacts. Determined to survive the economic woes strangling Europe, he
secured 20 interviews — but no job. So he set his sights on a faraway and
unlikely market: Mozambique, Portugal’s once war-torn former colony.
Today, Charata is a senior executive at a Mozambican media company, joining
thousands of his fellow Portuguese who have arrived here in recent months
seeking refuge from the euro crisis. “This is an oasis in the desert,”
Charata, 33, said with a smile.
Faced with mounting unemployment, rising taxes and cuts to social welfare
programs, many Portuguese are traveling to former colonies in search of
work, to the very places their colonial ancestors were forced to leave —
countries such as Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, which boast some of the
world’s fastest-growing economies, fueled by vast deposits of oil, minerals
and other raw materials.
Sub-Saharan Africa, to be sure, is no economic promised land. Much of the
continent still struggles with high poverty, disease and unemployment, and
businesses face major hurdles, including corruption and red tape.
But the Portuguese arrivals are an indication that the continent is on the
move economically. The middle class is growing in many African countries, as
are large infrastructure projects. Foreign investors are scouring the region
for opportunities, while trade with China is expanding. The World Bank
predicts that one-third of all African countries’ growth rates will top 6
percent this year, with many nations’ economies swelling more rapidly than
the East Asian tiger economies.
From 2009 to 2011, the number of Portuguese who registered with their
embassy in Maputo increased about 21 percent to nearly 19,000, and the
embassy estimates that more than 23,000 Portuguese live in the Maputo and
Beira regions. Many new arrivals are highly skilled professionals, including
architects, engineers and doctors.
The number of Portuguese companies expressing interest in investing in this
southern African country has more than doubled this year, from 10 visiting
delegations last year to 22 this year, according to the Mozambique-Portugal
Chamber of Commerce.
Across this capital city, restaurants and cafes are filled with recent
Portuguese immigrants. Portugal’s national airline has increased flights to
Maputo from once to three times a week.
“Everyone is feeling the pinch of the economic crisis, and Mozambique offers
a lot of opportunities,” said Goncalo Teles Gomes, Portugal’s consul general
in Maputo.
“People think this is El Dorado,” he added, referring to the legendary “lost
city of gold” that has captivated explorers for centuries.
A new, growing wave
Portugal
<
http://geography.about.com/od/historyofgeography/a/The-Portuguese-Empire.ht
m> ruled Mozambique from the 16th century onward, breeding what would become
a shameful colonial legacy, including the forcing into slavery of thousands
of locals. In 1964, fighting erupted between liberation fighters and the
colonial authority, eventually leading to Mozambique’s independence in 1975.
Subsequently, most Portuguese fled in fear or were expelled by the new
government, leaving the country in economic disarray. A 15-year
<
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mz.html>
civil war followed, killing nearly a million people before a peace deal was
signed in 1992.
The turbulent history between Mozambique and its former colonial master is
not lost on many of the new Portuguese arrivals. “I’m not proud of what my
ancestors did,” said Charata, who arrived here 11 months ago. “This is an
ironic situation. We’re trying to make a second life in the very country
that we were expelled from.”
Mozambique’s gross domestic product has grown at an average of 7.2 percent
over the past decade, even though the country remains one of the world’s
poorest and most underdeveloped. With new discoveries of coal and natural
gas, the country could become a major exporter of minerals over the next
decade. Many new Portuguese arrivals are heading to the coal-rich town of
Tete in the northwest in search of work.
Giant yellow construction cranes soar into the sky in Maputo, where a
building boom is underway to feed the appetite of its growing middle class.
That’s why construction worker Manuel Silva, 37, arrived here two months
ago. In Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, building activity had come to a
halt. So when a Portuguese company offered him a contract, first in Angola,
then in Mozambique, he readily accepted. In Maputo, he earns 50 percent more
than he made in Lisbon. And his salary gets paid in Portugal.
“My family needs money. We have four kids to feed,” Silva said.
Urban planner Ana Martins, 31, left her Portuguese government job last year
because she was worried that the euro crisis would bring more austerity
measures. In Maputo, she is the director of a Portuguese architectural
consulting firm, earning three times what she made in Lisbon, with an
apartment, car and other perks. Every week, she said, she receives e-mails
from Portuguese seeking work in Mozambique.
In January, her husband plans to move here, as well. He is a doctor, and he
said the medical industry in Mozambique is growing, with more hospitals and
clinics seeking trained professionals. “In Portugal, we have no future to
grow our careers,” Martins said.
Benefits and setbacks
Among Mozambicans, reaction toward the Portuguese influx is mixed. Some say
the immigrants bring much needed expertise in construction, technology,
banking and industry to this rapidly growing nation.
“They are an advantage, not a disadvantage,” said Andre Massina, 27, a
Mozambican engineer who works with foreign companies. “They are coming here
to create something new. They are creating jobs here.”
But others see the wave of arrivals as a form of neo-colonialism. In
interviews, Mozambican construction workers expressed resentment at the
higher wages paid to workers from Portugal for doing the same work. “They
use us and they insult us. They don’t treat us very well,” said Paolo
Domingos, 21, a Mozambican construction worker. “I prefer they go home and
never come back.”
It’s still not easy for Portuguese to find work in Mozambique. For every
foreign worker employed by a local company, several locals have to be hired
by law. Foreigners must navigate a slow-moving developing-world
bureaucracy, in which it can take months to get work documents.
And for every Portuguese who finds work, others have little success. Under
pressure because of the
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/euro-crisis-primer/>
crisis at home, they arrive with unrealistic expectations of quickly finding
a job. In Maputo, where rents are soaring and most goods are pricier than in
Portugal, the immigrants’ money quickly runs out — and they are forced to
fly back home.
“They come with lots of financial problems, with little money and much
hope,” said Nuno Pestana, owner of Taverna, a well-known Portuguese
restaurant. “Then the money runs out, and so does the hope.”
Many Portuguese companies also find it difficult to gain a foothold in
Mozambique. “You have to invest a lot of money, and it could take years to
succeed,” said Ema Soares, executive director of the Mozambique-Portugal
Chamber of Commerce.
Still, 400 Portuguese companies have registered to meet her team at a Lisbon
trade fair this month to explore investment opportunities in Mozambique, a
25 percent increase from last year. “They all want to escape the crisis,”
she said.
Charata understands. Most of his friends back home are jobless and worried
about the day their unemployment benefits run out. He said he has made a big
effort to blend into Mozambican society. Although he earns less than half of
what he made in Portugal, he has no plans to leave in the near future.
“The worst scenario is to go back to Portugal,” Charata said. “For the next
five or 10 years, it will be hard to have a good life there.”
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Received on Fri Nov 16 2012 - 09:28:29 EST
