"I don't think this [investment bank for the CPLP] has many legs to stand on, not even on a bilateral level, I don't know if we can achieve it. I think it's something on the level of good intentions, but that the implementation will be complicated as the President himself admitted," said Carlos Rosado de Carvalho on Tuesday.
For the economist, the proposal to create an investment bank for the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), suggested by the President, "is not feasible", but he noted, "it is one of those things that almost all communities have: a financial arm".
"The proposal makes sense, now if it is feasible or not I already have my doubts," he stressed in statements to Lusa.
The President, João Lourenço, suggested last Saturday the creation of an investment bank for the CPLP to develop the economic potential of the countries that make up the organization.
"We can be a relevant economic force if we work for it, we leave the challenge of starting to think about the relevance and feasibility of creating an investment bank of the CPLP," João Lourenço suggested in his closing speech at the 13th Conference of Heads of State and Government of the CPLP, held in Luanda.
The creation of a potential bank is aligned with the intention of including a new economic and business pillar, one of the priorities of the Angolan presidency of the CPLP, which began on Saturday.
This Tuesday, Carlos Rosado de Carvalho considered that actions within the Portuguese-speaking community "work more on a bilateral basis than on a multilateral level," admitting that "things will continue to work that way."
"Unlike other people, I think the CPLP is more of a political and cultural project than an economic one, I don't have many doubts about that, from an economic point of view things will work and they do work from a bilateral point of view," he reinforced.
"Portugal is the main supplier of Angola and there the relations work more on a bilateral basis," the expert also pointed out.
The Heads of State and Government of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), meeting in Luanda, approved the Agreement on Mobility within the community.
The resolution of the Council of Ministers approved at the 13th summit of the organization reaffirms that the "mobility is a central design for the materialization of the community, for its importance to the increase and consolidation of relations of cooperation and friendship between the Member States of the CPLP and between their peoples, and its contribution to bringing the community closer to its citizens.
In the opinion of the also Angolan journalist, the community from the political and cultural point of view "is important", but above all, he stressed, the most important are the measures towards the mobility of people.
"But this mobility, as the agreement says, is a mobility at various speeds and I think this is, above all, because things are not the same for everyone, in the case of Angola what businessmen complain about most are the visas," he said.
"And I think that even before an investment bank, we have to improve the issue of mobility, this is on the agenda since the creation of the CPLP and is an increasingly urgent issue," argued the economist.
The issue of mobility in the CPLP, noted Carlos Rosado de Carvalho, "is also a complicated subject" because, he justified, sometimes there is political will, but then there are other obstacles".
"International organizations" to which many member countries of the CPLP belong were pointed out by the economist as some of the obstacles to the implementation of mobility, considering that "it is more necessary to work on the issue of visas than exactly an investment bank.
Angola assumed the rotating presidency of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries for the next two years after the Luanda event.
Despite nurturing "some expectations" about Angola's presidency of this organization, Rosado, admits, however, "not to foresee concrete results at the multilateral level, but only in the bilateral domain.
"It makes sense to talk about improving economic cooperation, but this cooperation between countries I think works more on a bilateral basis than a multilateral one and I think the past demonstrates that," he insisted.
Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor are the nine member states of the CPLP, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
