Luanda - Angolan head of State João Lourenço has defended the strengthening of bilateral cooperation with Cuba which ensures a new model focused on high-level specialised exchange in crucial areas of knowledge.
João Lourenço was speaking at the opening of official talks that gathered the delegations from both countries held Monday in Luanda, as part of the official visit of his Cuban counterpart, Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez to Angola.
“We are very pleased with this great result of our bilateral cooperation. And, therefore, we must maintain it, ensuring a new model focused on high-level specialised exchange in crucial areas of knowledge. Once again, we count on your strong cooperation and solidarity”, he said.
João Lourenço highlighted the role of Cuban health professionals, who for long time secured the operation of hospital facilities at all levels and throughout the national territory, at a time the country focused on training its staff in Angola, Cuba and in several European countries.
The Statesman said that Angola and Cuba developed, in barely four decades of bilateral relations, a wide range of actions, including in the sectors of Health, Education and Higher Education, Defence, Tourism, Transport, Sport, Trade and Industry.
The head of state underlined that, in the most difficult moments in the country's history and immediately after achieving National Independence (November 11, 1975), a moment in which there was a massive flight of Portuguese staff, Cuba was available to welcome and train young Angolans in different areas of knowledge.
In this way, he added, "today we have very well-prepared Angolan staff, trained in Cuban schools, universities and military academies, or in Angola by Cuban instructors and teachers, who carry out the functions assigned to them with great care and efficiency".
According to the Angolan President, in the context of the new vision of the model that must be present in the relationship between the two countries from now on, it is essential that we agree on the dynamic role that the private sector and the citizens of the respective States can play, within the framework of free initiative to strengthen the capacity of their economies and bilateral cooperation.
He considered the moment an opportunity for the parties to also focus on initiatives that introduce a new impetus and dynamism in the current framework of cooperation, which naturally needs to be adjusted to the new realities of these countries and even to the context of the world we live in today.
João Lourenço referred, on the other hand, to the recent past in which “the two States wrote indelible pages in the history of Africa, particularly in the southern region, where they merged in a common effort, shedding sweat, blood and tears to guarantee independence, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Angola, freeing part of the African continent from the heinous apartheid regime and its accomplices, restoring freedom and dignity to the peoples of the region”.
“We will remain faithful to the principles of gratitude that characterize Angolans, seeking to repay the support that has been given to us over these years of multifaceted partnership through preferential trade and private investment”, he stressed. . VC/SC/ADR/CF/NIC
