"In the world it is thought that there may not be funds to leverage the projects [of Lusophone companies in the Lusophone space], but we realize from the work we do internally that the problem is that there are no good projects to be banked", said Nelma Fernandes, to on the sidelines of the public inauguration ceremony, which took place at the Centro Cultural de Belém, in Lisbon.
"We are going to support businessmen to build solid projects that can be financed and implemented within the community" of the Portuguese-speaking countries, promised the successor of Salimo Abdula, the historic president of the confederation that brings together the Portuguese-speaking businessmen.
Asked about the priorities of the mandate, Nelma Fernandes also pointed out the mobility and training of entrepreneurs.
"There are at least three concrete situations that this department, in this mandate from 2022 to 2026, will fulfill, and the first is business training", said the businesswoman, admitting that "there is a big gap within the community made up of countries in different stages and some need this commercial leverage to be able to respond to their needs".
Afterwards, he pointed to mobility as another of the main themes, stressing that "entrepreneurs are conditioned by visas" and that they will "work to at least try to help build the best solutions" to end "this obstacle".
The public inauguration ceremony takes place after the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Sotavento (Cape Verde) filed a precautionary measure against the inauguration, which already took place on December 12, following a vote that was annulled by some countries- members did not have their dues up to date, which made the election result unfeasible and made it possible for the list headed by Nelma Fernandes to win the vote made only by the six members with their dues up to date.
Asked whether the controversy of the last few days could influence her mandate, Nelma Fernandes replied: "There is no controversy, the CE-CPLP is governed by statutes and internal regulations, the CE-CPLP is not people, it has its direction, it has the general meeting board and the supervisory board and these are the bodies that are constituted, so it does not interfere at all with what our work is".
Regarding situations of this kind, she concluded: "They go in the sense of trying to tarnish some institution, but anyway, it's the world we have today".
Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor are part of the CPLP, making up a community of around 255 million people.
Mozambican Salimo Abdula has led the CE-CPLP for the last nine years.
