João Lourenço, who made a state visit to India this weekend, was received at the Presidential Palace in New Delhi (Rashtrapati Bavan, “President’s House”) by the country’s two most senior figures, the President, Draupadi Murmu, and the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
In his speech in the Indian capital, the head of state highlighted the importance of “direct participation by Indian investors in the Angolan economy”, which he considered to have significant growth potential, benefiting from “a significant asset” in its young population with “the capacity to assimilate new knowledge” that can be put to the service of Indian entrepreneurs.
João Lourenço stressed that there is political will to implement ideas and projects with mutual benefits, and that it is essential to “mobilise the necessary financial resources”.
He challenged the Indian government to create an investment fund to encourage Indian entrepreneurs to invest in Angola, as well as an export credit line.
The state visit is João Lourenço's first to India and comes thirty-eight years after the previous President, José Eduardo dos Santos, visited the country at a time when Angola was still struggling with the civil war that largely hampered “the achievement of development objectives, which could have been achieved within the framework of cooperation”, he noted.
“Today, circumstances have changed, we have peace in a context of democracy that is consolidating, which opens up much broader prospects for exchange between the Republic of Angola and India, whose potential, shared with what Angola has, can help create a very broad base of business opportunities, trade, institutional cooperation and investment in the economies of our respective countries”, continued the head of the executive.
Among Angola's main interests in terms of cooperation with India, he highlighted agriculture to promote food security, finance, health, defence, higher education, information technology, energy, industry and trade, mineral resources, oil and gas.
During the visit, Angola and India signed several legal instruments that will allow the resumption and strengthening of bilateral cooperation after a long period of stagnation, João Lourenço also indicated.
Angola has an Indian community of more than five thousand citizens, who are involved in a large number of economic activities, with an emphasis on food distribution.
