Sao Tome: Angola suggests cooperation agreements to boost economy, investment

Angola’s government on Monday proposed to Sao Tome and Principe agreements for the “promotion and affirmation” of cooperation in the fishing, hospitality, tourism, transport, oil, safety and defence and investment sectors.

“We have the obligation to create conditions that will enable us in a short space of time to identify and frame in an efficient way the potential and challenges of each one,” the secretary of state for international cooperation and communities, Domingos Vieira Lopes, said in Sao Tome.

He added that the aim was “to obtain reciprocal advantages at every level, in the economic and political-diplomatic sector, with special emphasis on the fishing, hotel, tourism, oil, safety and defence and investment sectors.”

Vieira Lopes heads the Angolan delegation of around 20 members that arrived on Monday for a three-day visit on invitation by the government of Sao Tome and Principe.

The Angolan committee integrates representatives of all sectors of Angola’s government as well as from the private sector.

“Both our counties have developed, throughout the past years, cooperation based on political, historical, cultural and geographic factors,” he added.

Angola is aware of the problems Sao Tome and Principe has faced and at the moment the current political, social and financial scenario demands “dynamism in the process of identifying potential areas of common interest and their transformation in the context of the sustainable development” of both countries, he pointed out.

Sao Tome and Principe’s minister for foreign affairs, Elsa Pinto, said that the government aimed to “mark a new period of bilateral relations with the Republic of Angola, a new era and a new partnership based on mutual benefits.”

The government of Sao Tome and Principe is going to suggest access to the geographic and geostrategic space of the Gulf of Guinea, which it says will require “deeper political dialogue.”

Angola’s secretary of state for international cooperation and communities was received by the prime minister, Jorge Bom Jesus, on Monday.

A source linked to the negotiations told Lusa that besides discussing bilateral cooperation, they also prepared a visit by Angola’s ministers of finance and foreign affairs to Sao Tome and Principe, which could take place before the end of May.