João Lourenço, who inaugurated this Tuesday the 38th edition of the Luanda International Fair (Filda), said, in statements to the press, that he found, in his visit to the space, that "there is production in plain sight".
"What we would like to do is encourage the private sector of our economy to be more ambitious so that production levels come closer and closer to the needs of the country, the populations, to export the surplus. We have to be more and more ambitious" , said João Lourenço.
According to the President, the country's economy will only be strong when it has a strong private sector, expressing his commitment in terms of policy and incentives, so that the private business sector "assumes its role".
"We are in a phase in which we have already demonstrated the political will for the State to leave the economy, to be a regulator. The clear signal we gave was the Propriv [privatization] program. Many of the State assets that we understand should not remain in the hands of the State, we are passing them on, through a public tender, to the private sector, which, without a doubt, knows how to do better than the State, than the public sector", he said.
The Special Economic Zone, continued the President, is one of the examples, which, before the privatizations, did not record "absolutely no production".
"The State made a big investment here, but it was unable to take advantage corresponding to the investment made and we noticed a difference like overnight from the moment we took the decision to privatize these units", he stressed.
With regard to attracting foreign private investment to Angola, João Lourenço stressed that it is still unsatisfactory, therefore, the country "still continues to fight and advocate and seek to attract foreign direct investment to Angola".
"This is what we have done in most of our missions abroad, the visits we make, at the level of the holder of executive power, at the level of ministers, at AIPEX [export promotion agency]. We have been working towards, on the one hand, to create a good business environment, on the other hand, to say that in terms of the business environment it is much better, therefore, the time has come for us to start arriving in Angola to make the investments that we would like to see", he stressed.
João Lourenço highlighted the presence of 15 countries participating this year in Filda, which "represents confidence" in the Angolan market and in the measures that the Government is taking to simplify foreign investment.
"They are noticing that visas for both tourists and investors, especially for investors, are increasingly easy to acquire, they are noticing that there is seriousness in the fight that we lead in the fight against corruption, nobody is going to extort money from them for the fact that invest in Angola", he said.
According to João Lourenço, the presence of that number of exhibitors this year at Filda is "belief" in what Angola has been defending in the last five years in terms of the fight against corruption,
"They are really starting to believe that it is true and they have their embassies here, as do some investors who have already set up companies here in Angola (...) of exhibitors, I believe that in the coming years we will have much more", he observed.
In his opening speech at Filda, the President reaffirmed his commitment to improving the business environment, also announcing the start of several works on roads, water supply and energy.
"We reaffirm our conviction that diversification is the only sure path to inclusive economic and social growth", underlined João Lourenço.
The Business Association of Portugal (AEP) and 22 Portuguese companies participate in Filda, which runs until Saturday.
