CPLP: Portuguese-speaking countries will be global leaders in 20 years – Business Confederation

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

CPLP: Portuguese-speaking countries will be global leaders in 20 years – Business Confederation

11:13 CAT | 17 Jul 2018

A view of the general meeting of the CPLP Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, at a hotel in Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde, July 16, 2018. Photo: Tiago Petinga / Lusa

Lusophone entrepreneurs are pushing for a commitment to making CPLP member states “global economic leaders” within 20 years, the chairman of the Confederation of Business (EC-CPLP), Mozambican entrepreneur Salimo Abdula, said in Cape Verde yesterday.

“We want to position ourselves as global economic leaders two decades from now, and we have the resources for that. What is lacking is the political courage,” Abdula said.

Businesspeople already have a well-matured vision of this, the EC-CPLP chairman said after a meeting with the Cape Verdean President, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, on the sidelines of the CPLP Heads of State Summit, which starts in the Cape Verdean city of Santa Maria today.

Entrepreneurs are hoping that “now, there is this political courage, and that politicians will open up the highways and let entrepreneurs do the rest”.

In particular, the confederation hopes that the XII Conference of Heads of State and Government of the CPLP, being held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Santa Maria, will make progress on the issue of mobility.

The EC-CPLP proposes that mobility of citizens between the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) should be facilitated right away, “at least until the issue of Portugal is solved vis-à-vis the European Union” under the Schengen agreement on the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital.

“We want a complete opening of all CPLP passports with freedom of travel for Portuguese-speaking citizens for at least 90 days,” Abdula said.

Portugal and Cape Verde last year presented a proposal providing for full freedom of residence (for the purposes of work or study) for Portuguese-speaking citizens in any country in the community.

Asked whether the fact that different countries are part of regional organisations – such as the European Union, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or Mercosur – could be an impediment to free movement, the president of the EC-CPLP said he thought it was rather “an advantage”.

“We only see this as a complement to the much larger space,” he said.

Entrepreneurs say that the shared Portuguese language, estimated as accounting for 17 percent of all economic activity, facilitates business among themselves.

Other measures the EC-CPLP advocates include legislation eliminating double taxation and the setting up of a development bank or similar financial institution to support the development of resources.

“All this will only be possible if there is a common vision of the CPLP asserting itself in the global space,” Abdula insists.

During the 12th Conference of Heads of State and Government of the CPLP, under the motto “Culture, People and Oceans”, Cape Verde will take over the presidency of this organisation for a two-year period.

CPLP member states are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe and Timor-Leste.

Source: Lusa