Welcome to the page of the State Visit to Angola

My first words are to let Your Excellency, Mister Governor, know how extremely gratified I, my Wife, and the retinue that accompanies us, are for the fraternal friendship with which we have been welcomed in this Visit to the Province of Benguela, as well as for the personal endeavour you have placed in its preparation. A Visit that allows me to confirm the strong impression that I recorded at the time, of the extreme beauty of these lands when I travelled here a few decades ago.

To thank you, as well, for having invited us to this dinner and the opportunity given me to commune with representative figures of the various sectors of society in this Province, and with some of the many Portuguese, my countrymen, who live and work here.

Your Excellency will allow me to take advantage of this occasion to address them a few words.

Dear countrymen,

In the etymology of the word Lobito there is a term that evokes the idea of a gate, a corridor, a passage.

What a happy idea to describe the vocation of this Province, headed by two magnificent cities, Benguela which gave it its name, and Lobito, that charms everybody.

Vocation of a gate to the sea, which is the Port of Lobito, and a passage to the interior of Angola and Africa, through the Benguela Railway. And, having said this, not more than this, we would already be enhancing the enormous potential of this Province.

A happy idea, also, to describe what has been the vocation of the Portuguese in the four quarters of the world: open gates, tear open passages, stretch bridges.

You are the living image of this vocation. Through your work, through your capability to create and undertake, through the generosity with which you try to meet the needs of others, through the way you integrate the life of this community.

In your practice you honour, every day, the Country that, far away, is proud of you and grateful.

Mister Governor,

Angola knows that it can count on Portugal and the Portuguese. It knows that we are here as if we belonged, wanting the best for this country, thrilled with its victories, confident in its future. Because that is how it must be with the friends nearest to us.

This is the stance of the Portuguese from the Province of Benguela and of those from Huambo who also wanted to be here, this evening, in an answer to your generous invitation.

Others will come, I am certain, attracted by the opportunities which exist in Angola’s bet on the diversification of its economy and in the fight against the macrocephaly of its capital. They will come, just as those already here, with due respect for the great sovereign nation which Angola is but no less Portuguese in their vocation to undertake, stretch bridges and open new gates to hope, together with their Angolan brothers.

To Your Excellency, Mister Governor, and to the People of this Province, I leave a word of admiration for the much you have achieved in eight years of peace and confidence in the potentialities of this land and its inhabitants.

To the Portuguese, my countrymen, I leave the certainty that they can continue counting on me to accompany their work, their projects, their concerns and their expectations. I also leave them a word of recognition that is mine but, above all, from Portugal.

Many thanks to you all.