Luís Montenegro was speaking at the closing of the Angola-Portugal Business Forum, dedicated to the theme of the agri-food sector, as part of the official visit to Angola that ends this Thursday.
"In addition to the consequences of the increase in the Portugal-Angola credit line that I announced yesterday, by 500 million euros, we have in Portugal, through the intervention of Banco Português de Fomento, a line of support for the internationalization of our companies with funds Europeans – InvestEU – which amounts to 3600 million euros, of which 2500 million are allocated precisely to small and medium-sized companies", he highlighted.
Furthermore, he added, "the Government is also committed to helping those that were once SMEs to now rise to the category of large ones".
In an intervention earlier at the same Forum, the president of the Industrial Association of Angola (AIA), José Severino, addressed Luís Montenegro directly, who asked that, when financing companies working in Angola, they "keep a share of 10 per cent for SMEs", highlighting that this was also a wish already expressed by the Portuguese ambassador to Angola, Francisco Alegre Duarte.
Businesspeople interviewed by Lusa at FILDA also complained about the lack of support for exporting SMEs and the difficulties in accessing internationalization and investment programs, defending more targeted solutions for this type of companies.
Montenegro considered that "the answer has been given" to these calls, reiterating that the support lines for companies that favor internationalization "will have repercussions on the markets they choose" and the Angolan market is "very relevant" for Portugal.
The Prime Minister highlighted that, in the financing lines already available, 711 million euros are for "direct investment in research, knowledge, innovation and digitalization, which are prerequisites for the competitiveness of companies so that they can also internationalize".
In his intervention, Montenegro wanted to leave words of gratitude and hope about the past, present and future of relations between the two countries.
"My first word is gratitude. Gratitude to the companies, gratitude to the entrepreneurs and gratitude to the workers. To the many thousands of Portuguese workers who are here in Angola today and to the many thousands of Angolan workers who are in Portugal today", he said, reiterating that Portuguese-speaking citizens have priority to enter Portugal.
On the other hand, he cited the example of the two companies he visited this Wednesday on the outskirts of Luanda – Powergol and Refriango – to express hope in the "entrepreneurial capacity, to take risks, to take the companies' products and reinvest them for good of creating new businesses".
"Gratitude is above all for what we have already been able to do and hope is above all for what we will still do in the future, which is the most important thing", he said, repeating an expression he has used throughout this official visit, that relations between Portugal and Angola are "relations for all times".
