Mário Caetano João, spoke on the sidelines of the First Joint Meeting of Ministers of Economy, Trade and Finance of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), on behalf of the Government of Angola, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Lusophone organization.
Ministers will focus this Friday on the theme "Economic Cooperation in the CPLP: priorities and challenges" and should adopt a Strategic Agenda for Economic Cooperation in the CPLP in the five-year 2022-2027.
The minister stressed that Angola "wanted to give more strength to the theme of economic cooperation", based on local business, taking into account that the CPLP is different from other regional communities, because the countries that integrate it have no borders between them.
"We have to have a variable geometry to see how this economic cooperation is going to happen and this is the theme of our meeting, where we will propose a strategic agenda," he said.
"Because countries are not border-frontier, they have to try to take advantage differently and make each country a turntable for the other CPLP countries," he suggested.
The governor said that "Angola, for example, by wanting to expand to West Africa, can count on a turntable through Guinea-Bissau and vice versa, or it can also reach Portugal, Brazil", among others.
"It's about finding mechanisms for sound and mutually beneficial economic cooperation," he added.
The strategic agenda will be based on several axes, from the promotion of external trade of the CPLP countries, greater attraction of foreign direct investment, financing instruments, training, among other initiatives, advanced.
Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste are the nine CPLP member states.
