Speaking to Lusa, those responsible for Casais and Acail, two of the business groups António Costa chose to visit on Monday in Luanda also stressed the importance of making financing lines available to face competition from other countries that are being approaching Angola.
António Rodrigues, CEO of Casais, a construction company that operates in Angola for 25 years and has been present in 17 countries, highlighted the importance of the coming of the Portuguese Prime Minister taking into account the relations between Portugal and Angola.
"Having an official visit is a good sign," he said, highlighting the "great modifications" to which couples have watched since settling in Angola.
"I think there is a lot of invisible work (...) in the sense of recovery of reputation. Today there is no longer a set of operational problems that were almost impeding Portuguese companies increasing their development in this market," said the businessman.
Nowadays, doing business in Angola, "is much more transparent and better seen by the international community," he said, also indicating that the financing lines have a great impact.
"In recent years, a little because of this geopolitical struggle of the three American, European and Asian blocks we see greater interest in Africa and see (credit) lines from countries such as Germany, France, England, countries that have never placed investment In Angola and are suddenly available", he noted.
"Portugal has a longtime relationship, there is banking, companies, we have so many ties that it is a pity if Portugal cannot keep up with the investment force of countries with greater capacity than ours," he added.
Still, it stressed that it is not just money and it takes execution capacity: "Who has to do the work is who is already on the ground, so it is an opportunity to do a" marriage" between the Portuguese lines and foreign".
"We do not have the same capacity and financial availability that other countries have and, therefore, we will never be able to follow in size and scale the budget of many of these countries," he recalled.
For António Rodrigues the financing lines also aim to create incentives for the economy of origin from where the money comes. "In the case of Portuguese it aims to intensify exports to this market and this is also very important," he said.
About the couples said that the company no longer has the construction component, but also of real estate promotion, prefabrication industry and even small projects in agriculture and pointing as areas of election for the future, waters and energy.
Ana Paula Andrade, president of Acail's Board of Directors, present in Portugal and Spain, besides the Angolan market, told Lusa that this was a visit that "complained for some time" as it is "very important" for Portuguese entrepreneurs that operate outside they feel support from the political authorities.
On the other hand, he pointed out "a great demand from foreign entrepreneurs by Angola", especially in the last two years, namely Spanish, French, Israelites, Austrians and Germans, noting that the country has huge natural resources.
"The great difficulty is in human resources, finding qualified personnel, but we also have the ability to form it," said the guardian of Acail.
Regarding the financing line, which will be increased by 500 million euros, from 1,500 to 2 billion euros, considered that it should be more diverse and not only in construction.
"It is important to support other sectors of the economy," she said, indicating that a joint work between the two governments should be developed, forwarding the lines (financing) to different activity sectors so as not to be absorbed only by construction projects.
Acail produces industrial and medicinal gases, has been in Angola since 2005 and supplies much of Angolan hospitals, as well as oil and others industries, and also has 16 dialysis centers.
The Prime Minister continues his visit to Angola with visits to Banco Caixa Angola, the Fortress of São Francisco do Penedo and the Portuguese School of Luanda.
