Portugal and Mozambique will hold this Tuesday, 9th, in Porto, the VI bilateral summit at which around two dozen legal instruments will be signed, followed by an economic seminar with around 500 participants.
The VI Portugal Mozambique Summit will be attended by the Portuguese Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the Mozambican President, Daniel Chapo, in addition to two dozen members of the two governments.
In an interview with Lusa, on Monday, the Mozambican President stated that the more than 20 agreements that will be signed today demonstrate the “excellent” level of bilateral relations, but he wants reflections felt by the people, asking for investment from Portugal in the infrastructure sector.
The legal instruments to be initialed, including cooperation agreements and memorandums of understanding, involve the two States directly – and the Strategic Cooperation Program between the two countries must be updated -, but also public companies from both countries, including in new areas such as communications and digital transformation or infrastructures.
The holding of the VI Portuguese-Mozambican summit was announced in July by the Portuguese Prime Minister after having received the President of Mozambique in São Bento, with Luís Montenegro highlighting at the time that the two countries had leaders at the beginning of the cycle with the capacity to transmit new energy to cooperation.
On that occasion, Montenegro aimed to “strengthen ties of political, institutional, cultural and economic cooperation” and considered that “there is no better expression of this desire to give this new impetus to our relations than resuming the holding of these bilateral summits”, he added.
In the interview with Lusa, the President of Mozambique also addressed the review in Portugal of several laws related to immigration, stating that the concept of the CPLP [Comunidade de Países de Língua Portuguesa] implies “harmony” and “free movement of people”.
Daniel Chapo highlighted that each country can establish its rules on migration policy “but without forgetting that no one lives and survives in isolation”.
According to data presented on Monday, 13,704 Mozambicans live in Portugal, of which 4,673 have regularized residence.
The program between the two heads of Government begins at 09:00, with Daniel Chapo and Luís Montenegro being received at Porto City Hall with military honors, before Mayor Pedro Duarte hands over the keys to the city to the President of Mozambique.
The two will then have a meeting alone, at the same time as the sectoral ministerial meetings begin at Palácio da Bolsa, before the summit’s plenary meeting scheduled to start at 11:00, with the traditional family photo.
At the end, there will be the signing of legal instruments and statements to the press by Luís Montenegro and Daniel Chapo.
The two delegations will have lunch at the Port Wine Cellars, returning to the Palácio da Bolsa for the Portugal-Mozambique Economic Forum, which will feature interventions by the Mozambican President and the Portuguese Prime Minister.
According to data provided to Lusa by the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP), Mozambican exports of goods fell by 25.8% from 2023 to 2024, to 26.2 million euros.
In 2024, Portugal had 1,158 companies exporting to Mozambique – compared to 1,508 in 2020 -, with more than half (54%) representing a turnover between one and ten million euros.
In addition to these, around 500 companies in Mozambique have Portuguese capital.
During the fifth Mozambique–Portugal summit, in September 2022, in Maputo, 18 agreements and memorandums were signed between the two governments, and announced by then Prime Minister António Costa a 40% increase in funds allocated to projects under the 2022-2026 Strategic Cooperation Program with Mozambique, an increase of 90 million euros.