Bank of Mozambique created Government of Mozambique took over, without compensation, the Mozambican operations of Banco Nacional Ultramarino, a Portuguese colonial bank that had been acting as the bank of issue for the colony. This became the nucleus of Bank of Mozambique. In 1977 the government also nationalized almost all banks in the country, including the Casa Bancária de Moçambique, and the Mozambican operations of Banco de Crédito, Comercial e Industrial and Banco Comercial de Angola, and merged them into Bank of Mozambique. At the same time it closed the operations of Banco de Fomento Nacional and Banco Pinto e Sotto Mayor. (The
Portuguese Mozambique in Africa was consuming an important part of the Portuguese budget and there was no sign of a final solution in sight. This year was marked by a large-scale military operation in northern Mozambique, the Gordian Knot Operation, which displaced the FRELIMO's bases and destroyed much of the guerrillas' military capacity. At a military level, a part of Guinea-Bissau was de facto independent since 1973, but the capital and the major towns were still under Portuguese control. In Angola and Mozambique, independence movements were only active in a few remote countryside areas from where the Portuguese Army had retreated. However,