Both my Wife and I are extremely pleased to welcome Your Excellency, Mister President, and Mrs. Lígia Fonseca, as well as your illustrious retinue, in this your first State Visit to Portugal. I was indeed very honoured by Your Excellency’s participation, yesterday, in the commemorations of the National Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.

I cannot but stress the fact that this is the first Visit of an official nature Your Excellency is carrying out abroad, since you were called upon to assume the highest State magistracy in Cape Verde, which evinces the deep and fraternal friendship that bonds our two peoples and countries.

This friendship based on history and a common language, on a sharing of ethical and political values and on a reciprocal affection, is the proof that the bonds that link Portugal and Cape Verde are truly special, wending much further than a merely good relationship between States.

The important Cape Verde community that lives and works here, is a true example of the bonds that link both our countries. It is a community that is distinguished by its dynamics and its work and which, through their efforts and a responsible citizenry, have positively contributed towards our collective destiny, sharing with the Portuguese people both the difficult and the joyful moments.

In parallel terms, a growing number of Portuguese have chosen Cape Verde as their professional destination, also themselves reinforcing the strong liaison between the two peoples and contributing – such as many Portuguese companies – towards the Country’s economic and social development.

Mister President, Excellency,

Portugal is nowadays one of the main investors in Cape Verde and its foremost trading partner. Although recognizing that much has been achieved in the last few years, and that the stage reached, at economic and trading levels, is already significant, I believe there are good reasons for us to be more ambitious.

Infrastructures, renewable energies, tourism, the environment, information and communication technologies and the sea cluster, in their several components, are good examples of the sectors where I understand room exists for greater cooperation between the two countries, boosting the acquired knowledge and the possibility of exploiting synergies.

The fact that Cape Verde has considered these sectors as priorities, together with its stake in innovation and entrepreneurship, well illustrates the characteristics of the development strategy that is being followed, the success of which is already reflected in its grading as a Country of Median Income. Equally, the rise of Cape Verde in several international rankings, in political, economic and social development levels, has confirmed and consecrated the success of the work achieved. And, lastly, the establishment of a Special Partnership between the European Union and Cape Verde has clearly embodied an unparalleled status in European relations with third countries.

Mister President,

“The ten grains of land that God spread in the midst of the sea”, so well perpetuated by Cesária Évora, are today a modern, ambitious and enterprising Country. Having started from a difficult situation and without evident resources, the course tread by Cape Verde as an independent country, in the last three decades, is truly notable. Allow me thus, Mister President, to congratulate you for all that has already been achieved and to assert that Portugal and the Portuguese, as happened in the past, will always side with Cape Verde to face the challenges that the future may bring.

It is within this framework that I would like to refer the Indicative Cooperation Plan between Portugal and Cape Verde for the next four years, which, I believe, will allow the continuity of valid projects and to meet the current priority requirements, such as security and education.

Mister President,

We have recently witnessed, a little around the World, several events celebrating the Day of the Portuguese Language and of the Lusophone Culture. These celebrations and the support they received, both in the Luso speaking area and outside it, well demonstrate our common stake in the Portuguese language as a global language, as a privileged tool for cultural, artistic and scientific production, and as a vehicle for social and economic relationship. The University of Cape Verde has also taken part in the celebrations of that Day and, in a praiseworthy initiative that I am very pleased to record, went still further, by dedicating 2012 to the Portuguese Language.

It was this common language that was at the origins of CPLP, an organization in which Cape Verde and Portugal have jointly battled for the values they share. I cannot but refer, in this context, the emphasis that CPLP has placed concerning the fraternal Country that is Guinea Bissau, in defence of the return to the constitutional order and full respect for the democratic Rule of Law and Human Rights, which has well shown the matureness of our common project.

Mister President

The excellent relations between Portugal and Cape Verde benefit from a strong institutional and political culture, We dispose of a wide set of agreements framed in the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation which came into force this year and which has placed our relationship on a still higher stage. A Treaty which is an unmistakable sign of the sound partnership that exists between Portugal and Cape Verde and which your Visit, in this opportune moment, carries a renewed impulse.

With this confidence I ask you all to join me in a toast to the health and happiness of His Excellency President Jorge Carlos Fonseca and Mrs. Lígia Fonseca and to the excellence and the deepening of the fraternal bonds that link Portugal and Cape Verde.