We hereby inform the business community and other interested parties that Law No. 8/2023 of June 9, which approves the New Private Investment Law and revokes Law No. 3/93 of June 24, has recently been published. It will enter into force 90 days after its publication, that is, on 8 September 2023, and the respective regulation must be approved by the Council of Ministers within 120 days after its publication.

The referred Law was approved to better meet the current economic needs and attract foreign investment in the scope of the implementation of measure 14 of the Economic Acceleration Package approved late last year.

Thus, it is important to highlight the following changes: 

• Article 5 al. (j), which introduces as investment objectives the undertaking of actions aimed at protecting and improving natural resources;
• Article 8, which replaces the reference to the 90-day time limit for the payment of the compensation resulting from the limitation of the investor's right to property by the public authority with the adoption of a generic approach which states that the just compensation must be paid in a prompt and expeditious manner;
• Article 12, which expressly establishes the general and special duties of the investor, including the payment of taxes, fees and other due contributions, as well as the contribution to the development of social responsibility policies;
• Article 16, which introduces other forms of foreign direct investment, namely: (i) the provision of specialized services from abroad for the benefit of economic projects in the country, (ii) the investment of capital in national territory within the scope of reinvestment, and (iii) the conversion of the amount of the Mozambican external debt relating to financing registered with the competent entity;
• Article 22, which establishes two investment regimes, namely the mere registration regime (a supplementary regime for projects not subject to the authorization regime) and the authorization regime applicable to large-scale projects, public-private partnership ventures and business concessions, investment projects that require an extension of land equal to or greater than 10 thousand hectares, forestry concessions of an area greater than 100 thousand hectares or that have as their objective the industrial processing of mining and/or petroleum products;
• Article 23, which adopts some of the principles of the Law on the Formation of Public Will (Law 14/2011), such as the duty of the competent bodies to provide a justification, the duty of the investor to hold a prior hearing so that he may comment within a maximum of 10 working days from the date of notification, and the duty to decide on the investment project, notifying investors within five days;
• Articles 25 and 26, which strengthen the investors' administrative and judicial guarantees; and
• Articles 27 and 28, which deal with the conducts that constitute infractions and the respective sanctions, safeguarding the right to information by notifying and hearing the investor before the effective imposition of the sanction.