João Lourenço was speaking to the press at the end of the inauguration ceremony of the Diplomatic Academy Venâncio de Moura, created with the financing of around 16 million dollars from the Government of China.
“The head of state at the end turns out to be the first diplomat in any country, that's why I took on this responsibility of trying to give an impetus to economic diplomacy,” said João Lourenço.
According to the President, diplomacy in general in the country is “very well”, however, in terms of economic diplomacy, Angola still has “a long way to go”, believing that success will be achieved.
With the opening of this academy, stressed João Lourenço, the country now has a greater capacity to train, prepare Angolan staff so that they can exercise their functions with higher quality.
The head of state underlined the role of diplomacy for good relations of friendship and cooperation with other peoples and for the prevention and resolution of wars.
"In our own case, we are reminded that it was diplomacy that led us to the four-party [negotiations] in New York and, in this way, we ended the conflict that opposed the peoples of this region to the apartheid regime," he said.
In his speech, the head of diplomacy, Téte António, referred that the main challenge in national diplomacy is "the human element", stressing that special attention has been paid to the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to train them.
Téte António stressed that since the beginning of the current executive's term of office, the selection of personnel from diplomatic missions has been more careful and a set of policies has been implemented for this purpose.
"In this sense, we have regularly given refresher and training courses to the heads of mission and staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to improve our diplomatic activity and better represent our country", he said.
