"Our hopes of starting to obtain positive results after the effort to restructure the national economy (...) will not be realized soon, due to the current constraints", declared João Lourenço in a pre-recorded video and broadcast this Monday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The head of state explained that the current constraints caused by the covid-19 pandemic around the world "disrupt the production chain, affect the prices of the main export products, paralyze services and other vital sectors of the economy, triggering quite low levels of unemployment. high and a worrying social situation ".
João Lourenço said that the country had to take "difficult measures and with a very harsh impact on the lives of the people", and emphasized that the resources to finance the productive sectors of the national economy "had to be diverted (...) to meet the biosafety and other urgent epidemiological needs ".
"This global health problem paralyzed all the dynamics that were envisaged in terms of the recovery of the world economy, which, after the economic crisis started in 2008, was showing encouraging signs of recovery and particularly in developing countries, as in the case of Angola" , he stated.
João Lourenço considered direct investment in the economies of developing countries as "fundamental" and "as the great equation for their economic growth and development".
Before the UN General Assembly, an organization that celebrates its 75th anniversary in October, the President suggested the mobilization of developed countries to "create investment support funds in Africa" as a means for "investors interested in doing business on the African continent".
In addition to the G20's debt relief initiative by developing countries, João Lourenço acknowledged and thanked the support and "solidarity of other countries, international organizations, companies and national and foreign non-governmental organizations, as well as individual citizens ".
In the area of international security, the head of state addressed the problems of terrorism in Africa and electoral processes, before reiterating the "urgent need" for restructuring at the UN and the Security Council of that international organization, consisting of 193 member states. .
João Lourenço asked the UN Security Council to adopt a composition that "better reflects the representativeness of peoples, nations and continents".
The body currently consists of 15 members, five permanent (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France; a reflection of the power scheme for 75 years) and 10 non-permanent members, of which only three are African (South Africa , Niger and Tunisia), with two-year terms.
João Lourenço's speech was included on the first day of this year's UN general debate, held with the limited presence of representatives and diplomats at the organization's headquarters and with video taped speeches by heads of state and government.
