Eduardo González
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will make their first state visit next week to a sub-Saharan African country, specifically to Angola, one of the major oil suppliers to Spain and whose economy is undergoing a very attractive reform process for Spanish companies.
The State visit to Luanda will take place between February 6 and 7. It is the first state visit by a Spanish King and Queen to this country since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1977. Juan Carlos I and Sofia never traveled to Angola, mainly due to the serious instability suffered by this country since its independence.
Besides, this is also the first state trip to Sub-Saharan Africa by the current King and Queen of Spain. Regarding the continent as a whole, the King has been twice in Morocco (in July 2014, shortly after his proclamation, and the State trip of February 2019), at the AU Summit in Ethiopia in January 2015 and at the funeral of President Béji Caïd Essebsi of Tunisia in July 2019. For her part, the Queen has made three cooperation trips to Senegal (2017), Mozambique (2019) and Mauritania (2022) and was at the inauguration of the Cervantes Institute in Dakar in December 2021.
Likewise, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, paid an official visit to Luanda in April 2021, where he signed an Agreement on Air Transport and three Memoranda of Understanding on Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture Cooperation and Industrial Policy. For their part, the President of Angola, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, and his wife, Ana Afonso Dias Lourenço, paid a state visit to Spain in September 2021, during which they invited Felipe VI to visit their country.
The King and Queen will be accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the State Secretary for Trade and President of ICEX, Xiana Méndez. Angola maintains very close relations with Spain and is a priority country in the III Africa Plan, especially thanks to its growing importance as a regional actor in the continent, whether as a peace mediator in the Great Lakes region or for its involvement in the security of the Gulf of Guinea, where it has carried out joint maneuvers with Spain to reinforce the fight against piracy.
The state visit will begin on Tuesday. After the welcoming ceremony at the Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport, the King and Queen will move to the Presidential Palace, where they will hold a meeting with the President and his wife. Apart from that, Felipe VI and Lourenço will hold a working meeting and attend the signing of three Memoranda of Understanding on Smart Industry, Sports Cooperation and Cooperation between Diplomatic Schools. Meanwhile, the Queen and the First Lady will hold a meeting on education issues and on the education initiatives of the Ngana Zanza Foundation, created by the President’s own wife.
This will be followed by an official lunch, at which the two heads of state will say a few words, and the afternoon will be devoted mainly to cultural cooperation, with the presentation of the International University of Cuanza, promoted by the Ibero-American University Foundation (FUNIBER), and the inauguration of Joan Miró’s exhibition El cántico del Sol y las maravillas acrostáticas (The Canticle of the Sun and the Acrostatic Wonders), organized by FUNIBER. Both events will take place at the Economic Bank Headquarters. The day will conclude at the Epic Sana Hotel with a reception for the Spanish community in Angola, made up of more than 500 people, including businessmen, religious, teachers and aid workers.
Business Forum
Wednesday will begin with the Angola-Spain Business Meeting Building the future together, which will include the round table Building development. Joint public-private effort and in which the King will deliver a speech. The event has been organized by the Chamber of Commerce and the CEOE (whose presidents, José Luis Bonet and Antonio Garamendi, will accompany the King and Queen). Between 35 and 40 Spanish companies operate in Angola in various sectors, such as energy, electricity, defense (Navantia and Airbus) and fishing. Indra has also participated in the organization of the last three elections held in the country.
Angola is the second largest oil supplier to Spain in Sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria (more than 96% of Spanish imports come from hydrocarbons). However, the country is currently undergoing a process of economic reforms by the Government, whose policy of privatization and macroeconomic stabilization has been favored by the increase in oil prices, which has allowed an increase in State revenues and a reduction in public debt.
Spanish companies are particularly interested in participating in this process of economic diversification and in contributing to economic development in sectors such as infrastructure, telecommunications, agribusiness, sanitation and water, engineering and defense. For this reason, this state visit aims to boost economic and commercial relations and promote the financing of projects in the country through the Fund for the Internationalization of Companies (FIEM), the Spanish Export Credit Insurance Company (CESCE) and the Spanish Development Finance Company (COFIDES).
After this forum, and as the last important act of his state trip, Felipe VI will go to the National Assembly, where he will meet with its president, Carolina Cerqueira, and will deliver a speech to the hemicycle. In the ten or so State visits the King has made since his accession to the throne, he has only had the honor of addressing the National Assemblies in France and Portugal. Meanwhile, the Queen will meet again with the First Lady to discuss the health-related activities of the Ngana Zanza Foundation.
