Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Both my Wife and I are greatly pleased to welcome Your Excellency, Mister President, and Mrs. Isaura Nyusi, as well as the distinguished retinue that accompanies you on this Visit to Portugal.

An occasion we celebrate with particular delight, since this is the first time we receive Your Excellency as President of the Republic of Mozambique and because it allowed us to meet once more after our fruitful contact in Maputo at the ceremonies surrounding your investiture.

I wish to express how honoured and sentient we feel, Mister President, by accepting the invitation I then addressed you, and by choosing Portugal as the first destination outside the African continent that you visit officially.

Mister President,

In the year when the 40th anniversary of the independence of Mozambique is being celebrated, the relationship between our two countries is showing an unprecedented dynamism and an undeniable proximity. We have, from both quarters, the indispensable political willpower to promote the deepening of our bilateral relationship and to further a more than ever closer contact between our institutions, our entrepreneurs, our artistic and cultural creators and, above all else, between our fraternal peoples. The bonds that link us are endued with exceptional features since being based on mutual friendship and respect.

Your Excellency’s Visit will be a further relevant contribution to strengthen the existing partnerships between Portugal and Mozambique, at political, cultural and economic levels.

I would underline the effort we have placed in the Portuguese Presidency of G-19, in the framework of the partnership for programmatic support toward the Mozambique State Budget. We will endeavour to provide our contribution to the strengthening of the Mozambican Government’s action in favour of development.

Equally firm is the Portuguese commitment to continue as a reliable partner for Mozambique, driven towards cooperation for its sustainable development.

I also want to congratulate Mozambique for the effort it has dedicated to the Community of Portuguese Speaking People, providing its contribution in order that the values we share are asserted and more visibly externalized at international levels. The continued growth in the candidacies to the status of Associate Observer clearly shows CPLP’s increasing recognition as a body of reference in the current world.

Mister President,

We are living times ruled by several sources of uncertainty and serious threats to values, freedoms and rights whose assertion and achievement highly contributed towards the improvements in the living conditions of Humanity. Viewing phenomena such as terrorism, traffic and exploiting of human beings or barbaric shows of intolerance, the example brought about by the relations between countries that excel by stability, friendship, mutual respect and the search for the common weal is more than ever important; in short, the bonds that link Portugal and Mozambique.

In a World which is more than ever volatile and mediatized, a serious but perhaps needful challenge will be to reinforce, mostly amongst younger people, the values of stability, prudence and dialogue, as well as the main fundamental principles in defence of Peace, of the democratic Rule of Law, of human rights and socio-economic development.

For this reason also, Mister President, the relations between our two countries is a unique asset, both politically and in the terms of contacts between our citizens and enterprises.

The Mozambique-Portugal Business Forum which will be held tomorrow will surely contribute to encourage commercial partnerships and investment between both countries.

In a period when the Portuguese entrepreneurial fabric has evinced capability and competitiveness in the opening of new markets and in establishing new partnerships, a country such as Mozambique justifies – and has known how to deserve – very special regard. The economic dynamism that is expected to continue in Mozambique, throughout the initial years, further strengthens the opportunities that are tending to emerge in the Mozambican economy. A great number of Portuguese companies opted to invest in Mozambique long before they were aware of the stimulating perspectives of its natural resources. That is, Portuguese entrepreneurs did not wait for coal or gas to prove their confidence in Mozambique, as a country where it is worthwhile investing.

Statistical data from the Mozambican Investment Promotion Centre allows becoming aware of the effective contribution of the Portuguese Community and investment towards the dynamics of Mozambique’s economy.

Contracted Portuguese direct investment has already reached 1,745 million dollars; amongst foreign investors the Portuguese are those that create most employment for Mozambicans; employment created by Portuguese companies has already exceeded 42,000; since 2008 that the Portuguese have been amongst the greatest investors in Mozambique.

Mister President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I believe that these figures are sufficiently expressive and clarifying of the undeniable stakes placed on Mozambique by our entrepreneurs. We are convinced that together we will ride further, within a spirit of partnership and mutual advantage.

In spite of the economic dimension being a prime component and naturally relevant in the relations between Portugal and Mozambique, our relationship is far from being reduced to mere business features.

As I have already had the occasion to refer, Portugal and Mozambique are also linked by friendship, by fellow feelings. This attachment is only possible between Peoples that are well acquainted, which are devoted to and respect each other. Relations between the civil societies of both countries are, in this field, main contributors, but it is possibly the artistic and cultural creators to whom we must be grateful for the immense tribute that they have brought to the nearness, the affection, the knowledge and of course the admiration we have for each other.

To have seen the paintings of Master Malangatana, of Naguib or of Betina Lopes brings the Portuguese nearer to the plastic feelings of Mozambican art.

To read and be aware of the works of Craveirinha, Mia Couto, Luis Bernardo Honwana, Paulina or Ungulani lead us deeper into the knowledge and respect for the feelings of the fraternal people of Mozambique.

In recognition of the immense contribution that all these Mozambican artists and authors have provided for the dissemination of Mozambican culture in Portugal and in order to bring us still nearer to each other, through knowledge and affection, all of them have been opportunely decorated by the Portuguese State.

«My greatest wrong, my deepest fault, was the anxiety for justice and to love Mozambique as much as I revere my white Algarve father and my black mother», wrote Craveirinha in a poem dedicated to his father.

Curiously, Mister President, my Algarve father was also white and, in Portugal, we are all, in whatever form, the result of many diverse links, sons of Arabs and Jews, of Romans and Celts of Visigoths and so many other peoples who became established here. With this I mean how easily we identify ourselves with Craveirinha’s feelings.

Mister President,

I thank you, once more, for your presence in Portugal and for your efforts to show, with this Visit, the deepening of the relations between our two countries. You can also rely, Mister President, on my personal drive in the improvement of the bonds of friendship and cooperation that link the Mozambican and Portuguese peoples.

I would recall, before ending, an opportune phrase of Mia Couto: “When we do not contrive the dream it is the dream that contrives us”.

I hope that, in the case of Portugal and Mozambique, we will know how to contrive the dream of a unique relationship in the context of Nations, for the good of our Peoples and their future.

It is in this spirit that I ask you all to join me in a toast to the health and personal happiness of President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi and Mrs. Isaura Nyusi, to the friendship between Portugal and Mozambique and toi the increasing prosperity of our fraternal peoples.

Thank you very much.