Rebelo de Sousa calls for cooperation in building industry

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Rebelo de Sousa calls for cooperation in building industry

7:27 CAT | 06 May 2016

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Tuesday called for continued cooperation between Mozambique and Portugal in the building industry, architecture and the arts.

He was speaking in Maputo during a visit to the Platium Building, a 40 million US dollar complex of homes, offices and shops, which is being built by the Portuguese Promovalor Investment group.

Construction began in mid-August 2015, and is due to be concluded by June this year. It includes 21 floors for housing, and 17 for offices. There will also be a multi-storey car park, with six stories above ground, and three below, as well as commercial and leisure areas.

“This job shows the excellence of the work done by Portuguese and Mozambicans”, said Rebelo de Sousa, “and we need to continue cooperating in civil construction and architecture”.

The Portuguese President, who is on a four day official visit to Mozambique, added that artistic interchange plays an important role in the creation of ever more robust relations of friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

“Art is important for our peoples because it establishes a link between them”, he said, as he formally inaugurated a tableau painted by the Mozambican artist Goncalo Mabunda.

For his part, Mabunda declared that his work “intends to leave the war behind and build a better future between Mozambicans”.

Rebelo de Sousa told reporters, after a visit to a Maputo’s Engineering Professional Training Centre (CFPM), that when he meets his Mozambican counterpart, Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday, he will discuss the question of peace in Mozambique.

But he declined to go into any further detail. “I will have the occasion to speak more about this later”, he said.

He described the CFPM as a good example of cooperation between Portugal and Mozambique. “It’s a symbol of the relationship between Portugal and Mozambique”, he claimed. “It bets on valuing the workers, and hence it is betting on the economy of Mozambique, on the future of Mozambique and on the convergence between Portugal and Mozambique”.

The CFPM was set up in 1983 by the OTM (Mozambican Workers’ Organisation), the larger of the country’s two trade union federations. 17 years ago the Mozambican and Portuguese governments signed a cooperation agreement on rehabilitating the CFPM premises, and on the professional training and recycling of its staff.

Currently the training centre teaches 13 courses on such subjects as renewable energies, electricity, soldering, engineering techniques, and computer administration and management.

Source: AIM