(Bloomberg) -- Heineken NV, the world's second-largest brewer, started building a $100 million plant in Mozambique as it seeks to compete with its larger competitor, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, in the southeast African country.
The brewery, to be located in Maputo province, will have a capacity of 800,000 hectoliters and will start production in in the first half of 2019, Heineken said in an emailed statement Monday.
The world's two beer-making giants are expanding in Africa to take advantage of rising household incomes and faster sales-growth rates than in more mature markets. Heineken has units in Nigeria, where it brews the country's Star lager, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In April, the Amsterdam-based company opened a new brewery in Ivory Coast at a cost of about 150 million euros ($178 million).
Heineken Takes on Castel in Ivory Coast for African Growth
AB InBev, which last year bought SABMiller Plc to become the world's largest beer maker, brews the 2M, Laurentina and Manica brands in Mozambique.
The country's economy is set to expand by 4.7 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Mozambique, which defaulted on its dollar debt this year, has a population of 29.5 million.
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Hill in Johannesburg at mhill58@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net, Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, John Bowker, John J. Edwards III
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