Pemba, Mozambique - Mozambique plans to invite private companies to build hotels and other facilities around the Maputo Reserve to try to spur tourism, a Tourism Ministry official said on Wednesday.

The government will soon launch an international tender for the nature reserve, which is 120km south of the capital Maputo and about 10 000 hectares in size.

"The area has different kinds of flora and fauna and it is favourable to different types of tourism," Bartolomeu Soto at the Tourism Ministry said.

In July, the government said it would invest $54-million to revamp national parks and wildlife that have struggled to recover from a 17-year civil war which ended 15 years ago.

The war drastically reduced once prolific herds of wildlife in national parks and reserves, while landmines and other remnants of the conflict make travelling off established routes risky.

Mozambicans also hope to benefit from an influx of tourists travelling to neighbouring South Africa for the 2010 soccer World Cup.
 
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