After a very busy morning in the province of Benguela, as part of the official visit this Thursday, Luís Montenegro spoke to journalists at the Porto do Lobito ore terminal, one of the infrastructures that integrates the Lobito Corridor, the most emblematic of the country.
Here, alongside the Angolan authorities and representatives of the consortium with the project concession for 30 years - which includes the Portuguese company Mota-Engil - in a symbolic act, Luís Montenegro sounded three loud whistles on a locomotive on the railway line and wanted to draw a parallel with the Portuguese economy.
“I had the opportunity to start the locomotive and be able to prove that the internationalization of our companies is a locomotive for our economy. We want a strong economy in Portugal, we want an economy with an export vocation”, he defended.
The Portuguese Prime Minister considered that his visit “has served to make him even more aware of the many opportunities” that can be shared between “the two countries, the two peoples, the two Governments” in deepening bilateral relations.
Within this deepening, Montenegro considered that the economic aspect “is essential” to bring “well-being to people's lives, whether Angolans and Portuguese living in Angola, or Portuguese and Angolans living in Portugal”.
Asked why he dedicated almost a day of his trip to Angola to the province of Benguela, the prime minister said that this was the result of his conversation with the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, who invited him to visit the country on the occasion of his trip to Portugal in the 50 years of April 25th.
“President João Lourenço suggested to me that one of the regions in which we could, on the one hand, project the future of Angola and, on the other hand, I could understand to what extent we have the capacity in our companies to be able to contribute towards that path, was precisely the province of Benguela and this Benguela-Lobito connection, the Lobito corridor, which is a fundamental logistics project in this region and which has an absolutely extraordinary impact and, by the way, also has, in its own history, Portuguese participation” , he justified.
With financing from the United States and the European Union, the Lobito Corridor connects the provinces of Benguela, Huambo, Bié and Moxico and integrates as infrastructure the port of Lobito, the Mineiro Terminal, Catumbela airport and the Railway of Benguela, extending the connection to the mining areas of the Copperbelt, in Zambia, and Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, promoting faster exports of cobalt, copper and other ores from these countries.
The official arrived this Thursday in the province of Benguela, at 9 am, aboard a plane from the Republic of Angola and was received by a traditional African dance group, as at several points on the agenda throughout the morning.
Without a tie, Montenegro then had a brief meeting with the governor of this province, Luís Nunes, and the delegation continued on foot, to visit the future facilities of the Consulate General in this city, a project that should be completed in August 2025, in a project with an estimated cost of over two million euros. “We will be back here for the inauguration”, assured the prime minister.
He then visited the Biópio photovoltaic plant, opened in July 2022 and which has become the largest solar energy project in sub-Saharan Africa.
The contract was carried out by a consortium between the North American company Sun Africa and the Portuguese MCA, the latter being responsible for the engineering and construction component.
This plant is part of a set of seven parks in several provinces of Angola which, when operational, will provide clean and renewable energy to around 2.4 million Angolans, contributing to the annual reduction of polluting emissions of around one million tons of carbon dioxide.
Luís Montenegro will return to Luanda at the end of the afternoon, where he will have military honors at the farewell ceremony, at the Presidential Palace, with a meeting with the press and a dinner hosted by the Portuguese ambassador in Luanda, Francisco Alegre Duarte, before flying at night. to Lisbon, where he will arrive in the early hours of Friday.
