Nairobi — Angola and Kenya will sign 13 agreements on Saturday in various areas to promote bilateral cooperation, as part of the state visit by Angolan President João Lourenço.
The verbal process for signing these instruments was signed on Thursday in Nairobi, during the 1st meeting of the Bilateral Joint Commission, by Angola's Foreign Minister, Teté António, and Kenya's Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Affairs, Musalia Mudavadi.
These are agreements in the fields of health, agriculture, the environment, mineral resources, oil and gas, tourism, telecommunications, information and communication technologies, transport and maritime cooperation, trade and industry and youth, among others.
A Memorandum of Understanding will also be signed between the Venâncio de Moura Diplomatic Academy of the Angolan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Co-operation between the two countries will also be underpinned by the Memorandum of Understanding between the National School of Administration and Public Policy (ENAPP) and the Kenyan Government School in the field of Capacity Building in the Public Service.
Speaking at the end of the First Meeting of the Angola/Kenya Joint Commission, Angola's Foreign Minister, Teté António, said that the inaugural session marks a new stage in the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two countries.
In this perspective, he considered it to be a historic moment that will allow the parties to intensify cooperation, based on the General Agreement for Cooperation in the Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Domains, signed in Luanda on 15 January 2014, which will allow other sectoral legal instruments to be signed.
Teté António reiterated Angola's interest in intensifying cooperation with Kenya, by exploiting the various potentials available, with reciprocal advantages, specifically in the areas of Political-Diplomacy, Capacity Building for Civil Service, Health and Agriculture and Forestry.
The minister said that the technical teams had also identified other areas of cooperation that should be finalised as soon as possible, and he urged the related sectors to work closely together in order to achieve this goal within the jointly agreed deadlines.
Therefore, he said, the technical teams should be made responsible for establishing a practical and flexible mechanism to supervise and monitor the commitments made in this Bilateral Joint Commission.
Economic growth
According to the minister, Angola, thanks to its political stability and the consolidation of its macroeconomic indicators, has paid particular attention to the country's socioeconomic growth and development.
In fact, he told the Kenyan side that the Angolan Executive has been promoting a series of internal reforms, with a view to establishing a more favourable business environment for boosting economic and commercial cooperation with other countries in the world in general, and in particular with African countries.
"Angola and Kenya are two countries with economic realities and potential, whose complementarity and comparative advantages will serve to leverage productive capacity and wealth creation, with benefits for both states and peoples," he said.
Téte António recognised Kenya's potential in the tourism and agriculture sectors, as well as its flagship airline, Kenyan Airways, considered for several years to be one of the best in Africa.
It is in this context, according to the minister, that Angola intends to learn from the Kenyan experience, and more particularly to attract private investment from that country in these and other areas.
For his part, Kenya's Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Affairs, Musalia Mudavadi, said that the signing of the agreements would represent a clear and responsible sign of how interested the parties are in strengthening bilateral ties.
He therefore said that it was essential to work towards their materialisation so that Angola and Kenya could overcome the challenges of development for the benefit of their populations.
He emphasised the fact that the strong interest of the parties had resulted in the First Meeting of the Joint Commission, established in 2014, and the visit of the President of the Republic, João Lourenço.
Musalia Mudavadi expressed Kenya's interest in working together with Angola to build ever closer relations of friendship, also in favour of Africa's development.
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The friendly relationship between Angola and Kenya dates back to the years of the struggle for our independence, when the then President of the Republic of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, brought together the leaders of Angola's liberation movements at the same table in 1975 to align a common vision for its liberation, but co-operation, in the broad sense of the word, took shape in 2010, when Kenya Airways began flying to Luanda under an air transport agreement signed a year later, in 2011.
Meanwhile, in 2014, Angola and Kenya signed four agreements that strengthened bilateral cooperation, namely the General Agreement on Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation; the Memorandum of Understanding on Political Consultations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Angola and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya; the Agreement on the Creation of the Bilateral Commission; the Agreement for the Operation of Air Services between and beyond their respective territories, in the field of transport. ART/SC/DAN/DOJ
