Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will begin tomorrow a tour of Angola and Senegal of a clear economic and migratory nature and in which he will be accompanied by a large group of Spanish businessmen from the transport, engineering, infrastructure and energy sectors.
Sánchez, whose tour has been prepared by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Defense, Industry, Trade and Tourism; and Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, will travel accompanied by a business delegation formed by representatives of Elecnor, AEE Power, Airbus, TSK, Riu, Satec, Globaltec Desarrollos e Ingeniería, Redondo y García, Impulso y Consultoría and Grupo AGEM, according to Moncloa sources.
The Prime Minister will arrive tomorrow in Angola, where he will become the first Spanish chief executive to visit the country since Felipe González in 1992 (Mariano Rajoy suspended a trip scheduled for March 2018 because of the situation in Catalonia). However, the activities will actually begin on Thursday with a visit to an electrical substation in Luanda installed by Elecnor, a company with more than 30 years of presence in Angola, and with his transfer to the Salesianos Don Bosco School, a Spanish educational and religious center specialized in literacy work, vocational training and care for minors at risk and whose methods are used by the Angolan authorities in their own literacy plan.
Pedro Sánchez will later be received by the President of Angola, Joao Lourenço, with whom he will sign a joint declaration, an agreement on air transport and three memorandums of understanding on fishing, agriculture and industry, according to the same sources. The head of the Executive will later be entertained by the Angolan president with an official lunch and, in the afternoon, he will preside together with Lourenço a Spain-Angola business meeting.
According to the aforementioned Moncloa sources, Angola (a priority country of the III Africa Plan and the Africa 2023 Focus, presented last week at the Moncloa Complex) has great economic potential and the diversification program launched by the Government to reduce dependence on oil offers great opportunities for Spanish companies in sectors such as infrastructure, transport and energy. Joao Lourenço himself expressly mentioned Spain (and other countries) during his inauguration speech in 2017, in which he invited Spanish investors to participate in his government’s economic diversification and privatization process. Apart from that, the Spanish government is also interested in taking advantage of Angola’s growing strategic weight in the region and in increasing cooperation in maritime security, especially in the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Senegal
Pedro Sanchez will travel on Thursday afternoon to Senegal for a visit that will have a strong migratory component and which will also promote the Spanish business presence, will address the role of Senegal as a regional player and will take into account the weight of the Senegalese colony in Spain, which, with 71,000 inhabitants, is the largest in sub-Saharan Africa in our country. In addition, Senegal is also a priority country in the III Africa Plan and the Africa 2023 Focus.
The working day will begin on Friday with a business meeting, in which the President will speak about the strengthening of economic and trade relations and support for Spanish companies. Afterwards, Pedro Sanchez will travel to the Port of Dakar, where he will visit the Civil Guard and National Police participating in the joint deployment to combat irregular migration, in which Spain is providing two patrol boats, a helicopter and almost 60 troops from the two forces.
Pedro Sánchez will then be received by the President of Senegal, Macky Sall, with whom, apart from a joint declaration, he will sign an agreement on the reinforcement of migratory cooperation and two memorandums of understanding on circular migration as an alternative to irregular migration and on the reinforcement of migratory cooperation in the field of care for vulnerable groups, such as women, children and the disabled. The two leaders will also attend the signing of two FONPRODE credit lines, one of 50 million euros for the construction of an urban solid waste plant and the other of 15 million euros for the technical development of irrigation in the Sahel.
The meeting will conclude with a joint press conference and an official lunch, after which Pedro Sanchez will inspect the future headquarters of the Instituto Cervantes in Dakar, which will be launched in the second half of the year and will be the first Cervantes center in Sub-Saharan Africa, and will conclude his stay in Senegal with a visit to the Spanish military personnel of the Ivory Detachment in support of multinational operations in the Sahel, in which Spain contributes two air force aircraft and 70 military personnel.
