Brazzaville - The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Téte António, Friday said that the participation of the Head of State, João Lourenço, in the inauguration of the President of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, represents the excellent level of the relations between the two neighbouring countries.

Speaking to the press in the city of Brazzaville, the head of Angolan diplomacy noted that the two statesmen met on the sidelines of the ceremony to exchange views on issues of bilateral and regional interest.

"We have never had three countries in the region leading sub-regional organisations at the African level. It was a good moment, in which the leaders took the opportunity to address issues of regional and bilateral interest," said Téte António, who was part of the presidential delegation that travelled to Brazzaville on Friday.

João Lourenço currently chairs the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), while Felix Tchissekedi is the acting president of the African Union and Denis Sassou Nguesso leads the Economic Community of Central African States.

The Angolan Head of State and his counterparts from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tchissekedi, Namibia, Hage Geingob, Chad, Idriss Déby, and Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, attended, in Brazzaville, the swearing-in of Denis Sassou Nguesso.

Re-elected on 21 March for a new five-year term, Denis Sassou Nguesso defeated six opponents with 88.57 percent of the votes, including Guy-Brice Parfait Kolélas, who died a few days before the elections from Covid-19.

The Republic of Congo is bordered to the north by Cameroon and the Central African Republic, to the east and south by the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the south by the Angolan province of Cabinda and to the west by Gabon and the Atlantic Ocean.

It has a population estimated at 5.3 million inhabitants.

The country's economy is centred on industrial production, which accounts for 71 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), followed by the services sector, with 25 percent, and agriculture, with 4 percent.

Angola and Congo maintain privileged relations of cooperation in the political, diplomatic, economic and cultural domains and are members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.