Luanda - The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, received Wednesday, in audience, the general director of the International Department of French Business Associations, Jean François Burreau, with whom he discussed issues linked to Angola's spatial development.
At the end of the meeting, Jean Burreau, who is in the country participating in the NewSpace Africa Conference, expressed the willingness of French companies to cooperate to achieve “Angola's great interest in geo-spatial development”.
Angola hosts, from last Tuesday until Friday (05), the third edition of the Africa Space Conference 2024, which addresses, among other aspects, the role of space technology in combating poverty on the African continent.
At the opening of the event, the minister of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Mass media, Mário Oliveira, informed that the country leads the Steering Committee, within the scope of the SADC satellite sharing program, by having the regional office installed and operating in Luanda.
According to the official, Angola has a relevant presence in the Consultative Committee of the International Satellite Organization and, in this way, “we can make our contribution to the strengthening and growth of the Angolan space industry, making it at the service of Africans”.
He pointed out that the coordinated use and management of radio frequency space and the orbits of geostationary and non-geostationary satellites, which are unlimited scarce resources, have been widely defended by Angola, in international forums such as the ITU's World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-23), of which the country has played an active role in these matters.
Mário Oliveira said that the Executive has implemented several actions to ensure that the country assumes a co-leadership role in the region
and participates in a relevant way in the international context in space matters.
He highlighted that the country has developed a set of projects that have an impact on the regional integration of SADC, with investments in space infrastructures, such as telecommunications satellites, constituting, for African countries, the answer to greater connectivity, affordable costs, as access to reliable
communications is reckoned as a factor in economic development and social inclusion.
JFS/VC/TED/jmc