Mozambique Import Data: $10.09B in 2023, Down 31.21%

Mozambique Imports the Fuel It Cannot Refine

Mozambique imported $10.09 billion worth of goods in 2023, a sharp drop from $14.67 billion in 2022. That is a fall of 31.21% in a single year, one of the largest year-over-year swings in this entire dataset. That 2022 figure was inflated by the arrival of the Coral Sul floating LNG platform, a one-off event that pushed the total unusually high before it eased back down in 2023. The platform itself, built abroad and towed into position off the Rovuma Basin, effectively counted as a massive one-time import when it arrived. Once that single event passed, Mozambique's import bill returned closer to its underlying trend.

Mineral fuels still topped the import list at 21.33% of the total, worth $2.15 billion, more than any other category. That is a striking number given Mozambique exports huge volumes of natural gas of its own, covered in the companion export data for this country. The explanation comes down to refining capacity, not resources. Mozambique has no operating domestic oil refinery. Every liter of gasoline and diesel the country consumes has to arrive already refined from somewhere else, no matter how much raw gas it pulls out of the ground and ships abroad. Mozambique's state-owned Petromoc signed an agreement with Aiteo in 2025 to build a refinery starting at 80,000 barrels a day and expanding to 240,000. The project is explicitly aimed at cutting the country's reliance on imported fuel, with the first phase targeted for completion within roughly two years. Until that project or something like it actually comes online, the fuel-import bill seen in this 2023 data is likely to persist.

Machinery, Vehicles and Cereals Round Out the List

Machinery and mechanical equipment supplied 11.33% of imports ($1.14 billion), reflecting ongoing industrial and infrastructure investment tied to the mining and gas sectors covered in the export data. Vehicles added 7.33% ($740 million). Cereals contributed 6.86% ($692 million), a reminder that Mozambique still relies on imported grain to help feed a population that its own farms cannot fully supply. Electrical machinery followed at 6.45% ($650 million), and inorganic chemicals supplied 4.70% ($475 million).

Animal, vegetable and microbial fats and oils added 3.32% ($335 million), and pharmaceutical products contributed 2.93% ($296 million). Mozambique manufactures very little of its own medicine, so this category depends almost entirely on imports from larger producers abroad. Iron and steel articles supplied 2.24% ($226 million), and plastics closed out the top ten at 2.23% ($225 million). None of these categories comes anywhere close to fuel's dominant share. Together they sketch an economy still importing the industrial inputs, finished goods and staple foods that its own manufacturing and agricultural base cannot yet fully supply.

South Africa Supplies Almost a Quarter of Imports

South Africa supplied 23.19% of Mozambique's imports in 2023, worth $2.34 billion, more than any other single country. Much of that trade moves overland along the Maputo Development Corridor, which links South Africa's industrial Witwatersrand region to the port of Maputo via the Lebombo-Ressano Garcia border crossing and the EN4 highway. That overland route makes South Africa a far easier and cheaper source for everyday goods than shipping from farther afield. China followed at 15.38% ($1.55 billion), and the United Arab Emirates supplied 10.31% ($1.04 billion). The UAE's Fujairah terminal ranks among the world's largest storage and trading hubs for refined petroleum products, just behind Singapore globally. That trading role explains why a country with no crude reserves of its own shows up so high on Mozambique's list of fuel suppliers.

India supplied 8.00% of imports ($807 million), and Singapore, another major refined-fuel trading center, added 6.11% ($617 million). Bahrain contributed 3.40% ($343 million). Portugal added 2.66% ($269 million), a trade relationship rooted in the colonial-era ties between the two countries that has persisted for decades since independence. Saudi Arabia supplied 2.64% ($266 million), Japan added 2.16% ($218 million), and Malaysia rounded out the top ten at 2.07% ($209 million). Together the top three sources made up 48.87% of total import value, nearly half the country's entire import bill concentrated in just South Africa, China and the UAE.

Import totals swung sharply over the past five years. The total stood at $7.70 billion in 2019, then dropped to $6.51 billion in 2020 as the pandemic disrupted global trade. It rebounded to $8.76 billion in 2021, then jumped to that inflated $14.67 billion peak in 2022 before easing back to $10.09 billion in 2023. Even after that pullback, imports in 2023 still ran well above the pre-pandemic baseline, pointing to an economy that continues to pull in more from abroad each year even as the one-off LNG platform effect fades from the numbers.