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

I am very grateful, Mister Mayor, for the warm welcome we have received from the authorities in Bogotá.

I also thank you and am deeply touched by the award of the Key to the City, with which I have been honoured, on behalf of Portugal and of all the Portuguese.

I salute, in Your Excellency, one of the most thriving and active metropolis in Latin America, rivalling with other world capitals by the dynamism of its economy, by the hospitality of its people and by the centuries old wealth of its culture and its historic heritage.

Bogotá has been the stage of festive and happy events in the History of this great Country. But it has also suffered many difficult times. Bogotá has always been aware on how to overcome the challenges it has faced, providing the whole world with an inspiring lesson.

Mister Mayor,

Colombia and Bogotá are awakening the interest and the regard of many Portuguese, and are now a professional destination for many of my fellow citizens, and also attracting relevant investments from Portuguese corporations.

Portugal and its culture are already present in Bogotá. The Fernando Pessoa Chair was created in the University of the Andes, with the intention to disseminate Portuguese language and culture. I was very pleased to find out that there are an ever growing number of Colombian students interested in learning Portuguese. Portuguese, which is spoken by more than 250 million people, in the five continents, is a language whose socioeconomic value nowadays is unquestionable.

Accompanied fraternally by Your Excellency, Mister Mayor, I will have the honour to attend, this afternoon, the inaugural act of the Bogotá Book Fair, where Portugal is this year the invited country. Our presence in FILBO will surely be a marker in the cultural relations between both countries.

The economic and cultural bonds that link the people of Colombia and the people of Portugal provide an important contribution towards our bilateral relationship. A relationship that must comprise the Local Authorities.

I am well aware that cooperation between the City that Your Excellency presides and my country’s capital has been flourishing, both of them active members of the Union of Iberian American Capital Cities. In October of last year I had the honour to welcome the XV General Meeting of the UIACC, where an extremely relevant Declaration was subscribed.

As proof of our relationship, the Portuguese Government decided to present the people of Bogotá with ten collections of fundamental works of our literature. I thus am very pleased to present Your Excellency, Mister Mayor, with a copy of Os Lusíadas, by Luis de Camões, an epic poem that commemorates not just the deeds of the Portuguese nation, but also its encounters with other nations in the four corners of the universe.

I want to thank you once again, Mister Mayor, for the hospitality with which we were received and wish the best of good fortunes to the inhabitants of this magnificent city.

Thank you very much.