Waves of change as Mozambique's coastal economy reveals lessons beyond the beachfront

You know you need a break when your email notifications start to feel like background music. So when my family suggested a holiday in Mozambique, I closed my laptop before I could change my mind. 

The drive from Pretoria to Barra Beach in Mozambique should take about 14 hours. That’s a lie told by Google Maps and believed only by the optimistic. Between queues at the border, the leisurely 60km/h speed limits through villages, and the occasional roadside goat that refuses to yield, time begins to stretch. 

Fourteen hours becomes 16, maybe 18, depending on how earnestly you argue with the border official about “administrative fees”. 

When you finally roll into the Inhambane peninsula, it’s like a small victory. The air thickens with salt, the sea flashes turquoise, and the sand glows the colour of burnt sugar. 

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But visiting this time felt different. 

I was last in Barra in 2022, a university student motivated by cheap R&R and tanning. Returning now as a journalist, and a business journalist at that, the same scenes suddenly took on a different hue. 

Business lessons on the road

Mozambique teaches you about money before you even hit the beach. The metical (MT) trades at about 3.73 to the rand, which makes South Africans briefly feel rich. 

Meals cost between 700 and 800MT, call it R190 for a plate of prawns so fresh you’d be surprised if they didn’t swim off the plate. Groceries appeared to be cheaper too, averaging between R400 and R500 for a few very full baskets. 

On our last night there, we purchased about 10 crayfish and two bowls of tiger prawns for a group of 11. The total came to 8,000MT — just over R2,000. About R180 a head. I thought about what that would buy in Cape Town. A single sushi platter, and maybe two glasses of sauvignon blanc if you’re lucky.

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Even the traffic fines tell an economic story. Mozambican police have a talent for identifying the exact moment you look relaxed enough to be stopped. We were pulled over for speeding, then again for unfastened seatbelts, and once for the crime of driving in plakkies (flip-flops). The officer did not appreciate my attempt to film the first encounter. 

When the plakkies-seatbelt fine came out at 10,000MT (about R2,700), we asked for an official ticket. Suddenly, the fine evaporated mid-air. 

The beach MBA 

Every morning, an informal parade begins along Barra’s shoreline. Men and women walk for miles, balancing goods on their heads and arms — jewellery, sarongs, carved sculptures, bread, coconuts — anything they can make or source.

They start every approach the same way: “Good morning! How are you? What’s your name?” It’s never just small talk but more a form of market research. Refuse today and they’ll remember your face for tomorrow. 

One man switched seamlessly to Afrikaans when he heard me speak, saying, “Jis mevrou, ek is moer arm vandag.” (Yoh ma’am, I’m very poor today).

Watching them, I realised this beach was actually a business school. Customer retention, relationship management and product diversification all delivered without a single PowerPoint slide. These vendors operate on instinct, empathy and the kind of persistence most startups only pretend to have. 

And the hustle scales. Most markets accept South African rand and meticals interchangeably. In Tofo, a nearby tourist town, I spotted a sign in the market advertising Bitcoin as another acceptable form of payment.

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Bitcoin adoption is surging in Africa out of economic necessity, according to a report by the Africa Bitcoin Corporation (ABC). Bitcoin offers a tool for wealth preservation and financial inclusion for those who lack formal banking capacity or identification. 

The practical utility of cryptocurrency is evident in daily use and cross-border payments. For instance, Forbes journalist Frank Corva writes about a successful Bitcoin circular economy in Kenya called Afribit, where merchants use it for both payments and saving. It also cuts remittance costs. While Africa received $90.2-billion in 2023 subject to an average 8% fee, crypto remittances are growing 55% year-on-year as a cheaper alternative, the ABC report details. 

Still, most Mozambican transactions (and the occasional bribe) happen in cash. Groups of women linger at petrol stations near the border, offering exchange rates that are often superior to that of an ATM.

Of fishermen and trawlers

At dawn, before the heat settles in, local fishermen set out in small sailboats or kayaks. They return by late afternoon, their catch sold straight off the beach or at nearby markets. 

These efforts unfold in the shadow of something larger. Out beyond the bay, industrial trawlers prowl the horizon. Vast ships owned by foreign fleets, many Chinese. These vessels are identified as the main perpetrators of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which costs the country up to $70-million annually, according to an Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) report. 

Read more: Taking over from the inside — China’s growing reach into local waters  

The Environmental Justice Foundation report, based on crew interviews, details widespread abuses including routine trawling in prohibited near-shore areas, sometimes as close to 200m to the coast in zones reserved for artisanal fishers, and the use of illegal extra-fine nets that catch small and non-permitted species. 

Watching it unfold in real life — small wooden boats in front, industrial trawlers behind — resembled a twisted David and Goliath parable.  

Red banners and blue oceans 

Mozambique’s economy can’t be divorced from its politics. Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), in power since independence, won another presidential election in 2024, with a 43% voter turnout, the lowest since its 2004 elections, a European Union observation report on the election shows. Reports of rigged rolls and voter intimidation circulated widely.

Read more: The chaos of Mozambique — a warning for South African institutions

After the Constitutional Council upheld Frelimo’s win, riots erupted across the country and were brutally contained. 

Read more: SA calls for urgent dialogue amid Mozambique’s escalating violence and protests

Further north, in Inhambane, the difference is subtle but visible. Government buildings remain intact and Frelimo offices are well kept, while the structures around them crumble. Red banners hang from lampposts, and I spotted quite a few locals in “Vote Chapo” shirts.

Mozambique’s contradictions are constant. Colonial Portuguese architecture stands next to Chinese-built roads. The infrastructure projects that do exist are often financed through opaque partnerships, the Environmental Justice Foundation reports, which leave the country burdened with debt and dependency. 

And yet, despite it all, Mozambicans find a way to trade, build and adapt. The economy lives in the hands of fishermen pulling their boats into the surf. In the vendor selling bracelets in three different languages. In the woman by the garage swapping rand at a better rate than most banks. 

That’s the thing about covering business as a journalist: you start to see it everywhere, even when you go on holiday. DM