Maputo, Mozambique, 2 March – Norway plans to fund projects for a three-year period in the areas of energy, oil & gas and non-governmental organisations operating in Mozambique and will provide 590 Swedish kroner (US$100 million), Portuguese news agency Lusa reported in Maputo.

In 2009, Norway was the country that invested most in Mozambique, with two large agri-livestock projects costing 4.4 billion kroner, and the country is also one of the 19 donors that provide direct budgetary aid to the country.

On Monday, Norway’s Environmental and International Development Minister, Erik Solheim, and the Mozambican Foreign Minister, Oldemiro Baloi, signed a memorandum of understanding to support the national plan of action against mine for 2010-2014, but the aid of 590 million kroner is not part of this agreement.

The head of the European department at the Mozambican Foreign Ministry, Ismael Valigy, said that the two governments had yet to agree on figures for the last phase of the project to remove mines in Mozambique, which ends in 2014.