Luanda - Angola and Mozambique signed Friday in Luanda a memorandum of parliamentary cooperation for the renewal of representative, supervisory and parliamentary diplomacy activities for 2023-2025.
The document was signed by the leaders of the Angolan National Assembly and the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique, respectively Carolina Cerqueira and Laurinda Bias, as part of the official visit of the Mozambican parliamentarian to the country.
The programme is intended to ensure the implementation of the Cooperation Protocol between the Angolan Parliament and the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique, signed on 27 November, 2003 in the fields of political-parliamentary activity.
The programme is ruled by the principles of cooperation and exchange, shared responsibility, mutual consultation, political and gender representation, as well as periodic evaluation, with actions to be carried out in Angola and Mozambique, including exchange of experiences and study visits.
Carolina Cerqueira stressed that the visit of the Mozambican counterpart to Angola aims at renewing the 2016-2018 Political Cooperation Programme, for the institutionalization of parliamentary cooperation mechanisms between the two countries.
She considered crucial the visit the Mozambican counterpart is making to the Angola, as both countries have not yet performed any of the activities on political and administrative cooperation signed by the two parliaments in 2016 - 2018 period.
Whereas, the leader of the Assembly of Republic of Mozambique, Esperança Bias, said she hopped that the signed memorandum will, in fact, serve to bring the two peoples and countries closer together.
The visit to Angola is the first of its kind since Esperança Bias became speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique on January 13, 2020.
Esperança Bias is being accompanied by the leaders of the parliamentary groups of FRELIMO, RENAMO and MDM, Sérgio José Camunga Pantie, Viana da Silva Magalhães and Lutero Simango Chimbirombiro, respectively.
The delegation is also integrated by staff from the General Secretariat of the Assembly of Republic of Mozambique.
The agenda of Mozambican delegation includes visit to Benguela province to learn of the functioning of the Local Support Office for the Provincial Electoral Constituency and hold a meeting with governor Luís Nunes.
On September 5, 1978, Angola and Mozambique signed the General Agreement on Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation, paving the way for creation of the Bilateral Cooperation Commission.
Bilateral relations became strong after the President João Lourenço’s visit to Maputo in January 2020, as guest, to attend the inauguration ceremony of the re-elected President of that country, Filipe Nyusi.