In Mozambique’s three largest cities (Maputo, Beira, and Nampula), informal businesses—those operating outside formal licensing and registration procedures—outnumber formal firms by a factor of 9 to 1. The World Bank’s Enterprise Analysis Unit recently published surveys of informal businesses in Mozambique, conducted in collaboration with the country management unit and colleagues from the Finance, Competition, and Innovation Global Practice. These surveys were designed to mirror the standard World Bank Enterprise Surveys, which cover the formal sector, but were tailored to better understand the unique conditions in which informal firms operate. Thanks to recent methodological innovation in sampling techniques, these surveys now also provide an estimate of the total number of informal businesses.

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