"Recognizing that Cape Verde has been taking significant steps towards its growth in terms of tourism and its development, we understand that wanting to be giants too, wanting to develop and wanting to grow, we have to exchange more and more contacts, experiences and knowledge regarding the processes that each one is developing", said Hélder Marcelino, in Praia, after a meeting with the Minister of Tourism and Transport of Cape Verde.
According to the official, who started a six-day visit to Cape Verde this Monday, Angola has faced some challenges in the tourism sector and there are infrastructure issues that need to be developed to serve as a base for private investment of the desired size.
"We still have challenges related to the qualification of services, challenges related to the universalization of some basic services, some goods that may be attractive to tourists, as well as the qualification of the tourist enterprises themselves", he pointed out.
The Secretary of State for Tourism of Angola recalled that the two countries have a memorandum of cooperation in the field of tourism that serves as a basis for taking steps to implement the planned ideas and intentions.
"It is our need, as the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, to learn from Cape Verde's experiences and, eventually, share something that may also be useful for Cape Verde", he stressed.
The Cabo Verdean Minister of Tourism and Transport, Carlos Santos, said that this visit serves to share experiences, and that it is "extremely important" to demonstrate that the archipelago is open to presenting what has been the journey in terms of this sector, which represents 25 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
"We are in a frank expansion and recovery, after the covid-19 pandemic. All indicators led to the belief that only in 2024 could we be recovering the rates we had in 2019, which was one of the best years in which we had around 820,000 tourists welcomed here. In 2022, we managed to exceed this figure by about 20 percent, reaching 835,000 tourists", he pointed out.
The minister said that during the visit, Cape Verde will share its "advances" in legislation, such as the Tourism Fund, which he considers to be an "important policy instrument" for the sector.
"But also other measures that have been taken, namely the exemption of visas to a group of nationalities that, also directly or indirectly, has been facilitating the increase in the number of tourists", he added.
