"There is a future in Angola for many Portuguese companies"

The relationship between Angola and Portugal "is untainted" from an institutional point of view and "is creating multiple opportunities" for Angola’s economic and social development, as well as in Portugal, from an economic standpoint, said Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro at the end of this three day official visit to Angola.

Luís Montenegro stressed that Angola is "a friendly country, a nation and Government that collaborate in a very direct manner" with Portugal and that this set "a foundation for deepening bilateral ties, which is absolutely excellent".

"Today I am above all committed in saying there is a future in Angola for many Portuguese companies and there is a great future in Portugal for many Angolan companies, and Portuguese ones too", he added.

The Portuguese Government brings from this visit "an extended list of specifications", not "just an exchange of meaningless rhetoric", rater "effectively concrete work, concrete interactions".

"We miss it already"

In his statement to the press, the Prime Minister, who travelled with the Ministers of State and Finance Joaquim Miranda Sarmento and Economy Pedro Reis, said that from an emotional viewpoint "we are ending this visit, and we already miss being here and being able to interact with the Angolan people and dignitaries".

On the material side, the agenda was "highly diversified and highly productive"; 12 agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed with the Angolan Government on several areas, and the credit line to Angola was increased by 500 million euros, noting the agreement between the vocational training institutes to promote training Angolan workers.

He still indicated the Portuguese School of Luanda for "its safeguarding and preservation and fostering of Portuguese language" and the "broad corporate agenda", through which he visited "several Portuguese companies’ interventions", in different areas, and testified to "the opportunities that are being opened in other areas of economic activity, in agro-industry, in tourism" and trade and services, he stated.

Companies’ internationalisation

During his visit to Benguela, which together with the farewell ceremony at the Presidential Palace made up the visit’s last day, the Prime Minister met with the Governor of the province, Luís Nunes, and visited transportation and energy infrastructures (including the largest solar power project in Sub Saharan Africa), in which Portuguese companies take part. He was with members of the Portuguese and Angolan Governments.

Luís Montenegro claimed that he witnessed there "that our companies’ internationalisation is a driver for our economy. We want a strong economy in Portugal, we want an economy with an exporting scale".

The visit "has served to become even more aware of the many opportunities" that exist between "our two countries, our two peoples, our two Governments" to bring "well-being to people’s lives, whether it’s Angolans and Portuguese people who live in Angola or the Portuguese and Angolans who live in Portugal".

Lobito Corridor 

The reason to visit the cities of Benguela and Lobito and  to the centre of the economic development that is being created there with the Lobito Corridor came from a suggestion by the Angolan President at the meeting on 25 April in Lisbon. 

"President João Lourenço suggested to me that one of the regions where we could, on the one hand, project Angola’s future and, on the other, I could understand how our companies, how we, could contribute to that path is Benguela province and this Benguela-Lobito link, the Lobito corridor, which is a fundamental logistics project in this region and whose impact is outstanding and which, has in its own history, a Portuguese stake", he said.

The Lobito corridor links the provinces of central Angola (Benguela, on the coast, moving through Huambo and Bié, up to Moxico, inland) and includes in its infrastructure the Port of Lobito, the Mining Terminal, Catumbela airport and the Benguela Railway, linking to the mining areas of the Zambia minim basin and the Democratic Republic of Congo, fostering swifter exports of cobalt, copper, and other ores from those countries.