Welcome to the page of the State Visit to Angola

I want to begin by thanking President José Eduardo dos Santos for having honoured me with the invitation to carry out this State Visit to Angola.

My Wife and I are extremely pleased to be back in Angola, a country to which we are linked by many and very deep bonds and where we have always been welcomed with the generous hospitality which is a characteristic feature of the relationship between our fraternal peoples.

Mister President,

This Visit is taking place in a particularly significant context. Angola commemorates, this year, the 35th anniversary of national independence and, within a few days will assume, for the first time, the Presidency of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries, replacing Portugal.

These are very significant events that illustrate the excellence of the relationship we were able to build throughout these thirty five years.

An excellence visible in our political relationship, but which is equally reflected in an intense interchange that musters the most varied sectors of our societies, from the economy to culture, from education to technical and military cooperation, as well as to the size of the Angolan community in Portugal and that of the Portuguese community in Angola..

This proximity brings about that anything taking place in Angola will never leave us indifferent and anything that happens in Portugal will never be indifferent to the Angolans.

Mister President,

Your Excellency has witnessed that Portugal has always sided with Angola and the Angolans in their efforts for peace and national reconciliation.

And, for this reason, it is absolutely natural that, more than anyone else, the Portuguese share the satisfaction of seeing the Angolans reaping the benefits that the conquering of peace have provided. We accompany the Angolans in their wish for a more prosperous Angola, more developed, and based upon consolidated democratic institutions, each day increasingly influent in the regional and international scenery. We accompany them such as we accompany the progress of our more intimate friends.

Our bilateral relationship is today deeper and more intense than it has ever been. Our cooperation is a particularly relevant asset in a highly competitive and rapidly changing world.

Angola has been for some time, one of the main trading partners of Portugal and one of the main destinations of Portuguese direct investment.

Our entrepreneurs can be numbered amongst those who have invested for a longer time in Angola, are present in practically the whole of the territory and contribute, with their dynamism, enterprising capacity and sense of social responsibility, to the creation of employment, to the qualification of Angolan cadres and to the economic and social development of the country.

Portugal is mindful of the priorities that Angola has established for its development. We are mindful of the appeals and programmes developed by the Angolan authorities in the sense of the diversification of the economy and in the stakes placed on the interior, objectives which are complementary and that interpret a vision of the country Angola wants to become.

For this reason I wanted to include in the programme of my Visit journeys to the provinces of Benguela and Huila, regions with great potential and whose development plans are clearly included in this vision that Angola has for its future. There I will attend two entrepreneurial Seminars, where business and partnership opportunities between Angolan and Portuguese entrepreneurs will be approached.

But our cooperation covers a vast spectrum of sectors. Education, staff training and health are areas where we maintain a fruitful partnership. A partnership which, to my mind, could be strengthened.

Angola’s fast economic growth and its ambitious development targets have obvious repercussions at the level of their need for qualified human resources. I believe that there are clear complementarities here between what is an Angolan national policy, which our cooperation already supports, and a need of the entrepreneurial fabric itself, including the Portuguese companies that become installed here.

The training of teachers, under cover of the “Know More” programme, the interchange of students or the inter-university partnerships are instances of the areas in which we could do more and better.

The Angolan concern with the diversification of its production fabric opens new horizons to our cooperation and to the development of our economic and entrepreneurial relations. In this perspective, partnerships in sectors such as renewable energies, information and communication technologies, but also in areas such as agriculture, cattle breeding, manufacturing industries, acquire a redoubled sense.

But Angola’s growth had another result. Angola is today a relevant investor in Portugal. An investment which we gladly welcome, as we welcome all foreign investment that is governed by rules of transparency and reciprocity and is inserted in the priorities of the Portuguese economy. An investment that contributes towards the desired approach between our two countries.

We view, in Angola, a partner in the deepening of our relations and in the search for new markets in Africa and in Southern Africa, in particular. In its case, Angolans know that other Europeans listen to us and frequently demand us when they assess their relationship with Angola. We want to continue to play this role of easing relations between Angola and Europe, particularly with the European Union.

Mister President,

Our countries are active and enterprising partners within the framework of CPLP. We share the conviction that it’s strategic value, not just as a factor of stability and promoter of peace and democracy, but also as new tool for the assertion of our objectives and interests in the global and competitive world of our times.

In the last two years, Portugal was able to count upon Angola’s support in pursuing the agenda that we jointly defined in the midst of CPLP, concerning strategic areas for our future.

This is the case of the projection and promotion of the Portuguese language, one of the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency. The Brasilia Action Plan, the approval of which will become associated to the Angolan Presidency, will be a prime added value in the pursuit of this objective, allowing equally the funding of the International Institute of Portuguese Language with the necessary means to pursue its mission.

We have provided the same drive for the promotion of the Portuguese speaking citizenship and for the involvement of the civil society. The setting up of the CPLP Parliamentary Assembly is an example of this.

I also emphasize the approval of the CPLP Strategy for the Oceans, which opens doors to a wider agreement on positions and objectives in respect of a fundamental source of resources for the sustainable development of our countries.

I am certain that the Angolan Presidency will know how to innovate and provide continuity to the work we have jointly carried out with regard to the strategic objectives of our Community. It can always be sure of Portugal’s support in this issue.

Mister President,

Portugal and Angola are friends. Throughout the last thirty five years they have known how to build a strong and ambitious partnership, looking towards the future, which endeavours to meet the interests and expectations of our citizens.

A partnership that is based upon objective complementarities and shared interests. But, above all, a partnership that takes nourishment from bonds of a very special nature. Bonds that will never allow an Angolan to feel foreign in Portugal, such as a Portuguese shall never feel foreign in Angola. Your Excellency will have confirmed this when you gave us the honour of your Visit. I asked you at the time to feel at home. It is my turn today, Mister President, to feel at home, in this friendly land, in this fraternal country.

It is on behalf of this friendship that I ask you all to join me in a toast to the health of President José Eduardo dos Santos, to the strengthening of the relations between Portugal and Angola and to the progress and welfare of our fraternal peoples.