Dallas – Angolan president João Lourenço ended his presence at the US-Africa Business Summit on Tuesday, with an intense agenda, marked by participation in two High Level dialogues and meetings with African counterparts and businesspeople.

The Angolan Head of State was one of the highlighted entities on the first day of work at the summit, which took place in Dallas, Texas, where he intervened in three different moments, to talk about the African reality and about the pillars of the strategic partnership that is intends with the USA, in different areas.

Opening the event, as the first Vice-President of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, João Lourenço said that the USA and Africa are essential partners to face, together, the challenges of food security, energy, defense, the environment, international trade and the global economy.

According to the statesman, private investment is important for the economies of African countries, which need to increase and diversify the production of consumer goods and services, transform raw materials and diversify export products.

He recognized the importance of public investment and public-private partnerships in infrastructure, for the leap that Africa intends to take and which is already late compared to other regions of the planet.

In his first intervention of the day, João Lourenço said that Africa expects a lot from the new partnership with the USA for financing and building the infrastructure necessary for its development.

He considered it necessary to make a strong investment in the construction of highways, roads and transnational highways, more railways, hydroelectric dams and respective transmission lines, kilometers of submarine and fiber optic cables, to make implementation viable of the Continental Free Trade Agreement.

According to the Angolan President, the African continent is counting on North American investors to increase its capacity to produce hydroelectric energy from its abundant water resources, the construction of photovoltaic parks for the production of solar energy on a continent with an abundance of sun that is wasted.

He further said that communication and information infrastructures through satellites, submarine cables, fiber optic networks and repeater towers for mobile telephony and internet signal expansion are of vital importance for Africa's faster development.

Regarding food security, he stated that the world must count and look first to Africa for its abundance of arable land, water resources, sun and young labor that can easily and quickly master the management of modern agricultural machinery and absorb knowledge of the most modern cultivation techniques.

To this end, he called on private investment and American know-how to make the continent a major producer and exporter of quality food to the world, having highlighted that the African continent can play a crucial role in overcoming both the energy crisis and the current food crisis in the world.

In another area, he said that private investment or in public-private partnerships in the construction and management of reference hospital units, in the local production of medicines and vaccines, will be very welcome and cherished by African governments.

In relation to trade, the Angolan President highlighted the process of renewing the African Growth and Opportunities Law (AGOA), as it is an important mechanism for framing commercial exchanges, which is intended to be increasingly inclusive and flexible. , to enable tangible reciprocal benefits.

In this regard, he expressed the common concern of most African countries, which is related to the challenge of public debt, and requested that some balance be established between the obligations towards the creditor and the imperatives of implementing the countries' development programs Africans.

High Level Dialogues

Later, the Angolan Head of State participated in two High-Level Dialogues, and in the first, related to the panel “Infrastructure Investment Strategy in Africa”, he highlighted the way in which the United States of America is helping Angola in the construction and financing of infrastructures crucial to its development.

In this regard, he highlighted the importance of the three agreements signed in Dallas, which will ensure the construction of almost 200 metal bridges across the country and photovoltaic plants, with American financing for production and construction of transport lines.

These are financing agreements for the construction of two solar energy plants, 186 metal bridges and for the expansion of the signal of Rádio Nacional de Angola, all initialed with Exibank, to boost the renewable energy and public works sectors and telecommunications and social communication in Angola.

In the same panel, João Lourenço referred to the consolidation and expansion of the Lobito Corridor, as a strategic infrastructure, saying that its existence serves to insert Angola into the development of the continental region.

In the second panel, on the theme “Navigating the future of energy in Africa”, the Angolan President said that “the countries' economies will still continue to be very dependent on the combination of energy obtained from fossil resources with environmentally friendly sources”.

He referred to the investments made in Angola to improve the energy production and consumption process, having stated that the country currently has remaining capacity and is already considering the possibility of exporting, after meeting internal demand.

João Lourenço stated that Angola's challenge today is to transport electricity from production centers to citizens' homes, industries and everyone who needs it.

Regarding how energy can support African industry, the Head of State stressed that the continent, although it has abundant water resources, does not, however, currently have sufficient energy production sources.

From his point of view, to reverse this, states and governments will need to build these infrastructures, which are expensive, doing so with their own funds or mobilizing resources through loans.

Bilateral meetings

Before ending the day, President João Lourenço held, on the sidelines of the summit, a meeting with his Liberian counterpart, Joseph Nyuma Boukai, with whom he discussed bilateral relations.

In the same sense, he received the president of the North American Business Council for Africa, Florizelle Liser, and the special presidential coordinator for American infrastructure, Amos Hochstein, with whom he discussed matters of bilateral interest.

On Monday, the President of the Republic received nine executives from different multinationals and representatives of the North American Government, with whom he spoke about the possibilities of increasing the strategic partnership and investments in Angola.

The US-Africa Business Summit, which was attended by more than 1,500 guests, officially ends on Thursday. ELJ/ART/DOJ