<p></p><p>Businesspeople from the Vietnamese province of Binh Thuoc may invest in cashew nut production and processing in Mozambique’s Nampula province, where 10,000 hectares of available land, an official said in the city of Nampula.The Nampula delegate of the National Cashew Institute (Incaju), EmÃlio Furede, told Mozambican daily newspaper NotÃcias that the Vietnamese project included planting 50,000 cashew trees and, in the longer term, construction of a cashew processing unit.</p> <p>Furede noted the importance of this investment both in terms of increasing and renewing the province’s cashew trees, estimated at 19,000, most of which are more than 20 years old, and of the techniques used, which lead to the production of one tree reaching over 20 kilos, as compared to an average 8 kilos for trees in Mozambique. </p><p>The planned factory will have a capacity to process 10,000 tons of cashew nuts per year.Nampula currently has 11 cashew nut processing factories that are unable to absorb all of the province’s cashew production, estimated at 40,000 tons per year, and thus some nuts are exported without being processed.At the beginning of the year a group of Vietnamese businesspeople included in the delegation of the Binh Thuoc province delegation visited Nampula province at the invitation of the local government, with a view to exploring investment opportunities in the areas of cashew, cassava and wood production. <br></p><p></p>