On a three day visit to the smallest Portuguese-speaking country, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has said that it’s time for cooperation with the Gulf of Guinea islands of São Tomé and Príncipe to “go much further”.
In a couple of months time, he told SIC television this morning, prime minister António Costa will be following his footsteps and bringing with him a posse of businesspeople to open the door to new deals and economic links.
“We want to cover everything”, he told reporters. “From education to health, social solidarity, defence”.
São Tomé and Príncipe -located about 140 kms apart and 155 and 140 kms respectively from the western equatorial coast of Central Africa, is a “strategic priority” for Portugal, he added.
President Marcelo said the time now was ripe for “the study and preparation of new formulas” to reinforce cooperation with the two countries.
This is the first time in 18 years that a Portuguese head of State has travelled to these former colonial outposts that won independence in 1975.
Accompanying President Marcelo is Portugal’s foreign affairs minister Augusto Santos Silva.
The visit follows remarks last week by São Tomé’s prime minister Patrice Trovoada who told Lusa news agency that cooperation with Portugal needed a reboot as “things are not at the most desirable level”.
As President Marcelo has countered, these were not so much criticisms, as “aspirations, with we have as well”.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
