Bissau, Nov. 5, 2024 (Lusa) - The minister of natural resources, Malam Sambu, told Lusa on Tuesday that Guinea-Bissau and the China Aluminium Corporation (CAC) have signed a strategic partnership agreement to prospect and explore mines in the Guinean territory of Boé.

Under the agreement, initialled earlier this week in Bissau, the Guinean government ceded to CAC part of a territory in the town of Boé, in the east of the country, where there is believed to be an important deposit of bauxite, said Sambu.

Studies will begin soon to determine the amount of bauxite in that mine, the minister added.

The agreement signed by the Guinean government and CAC follows the memorandum of understanding initialled during Guinean President Umaro Sissoco Embaló's visit to China last July.

Geological studies show that Guinea-Bissau has more than 113 million tonnes of bauxite, the main natural source of aluminium, in the historic town of Boé - where the country's independence was unilaterally proclaimed in 1973.

In 2007, the Bissau-Guinean government granted a licence to Bauxite Angola, a mixed company under Angolan law, to exploit this mineral. The company stopped prospecting work, which began in April 2012, following a coup d'état in Guinea-Bissau.

Since then, Bauxite Angola has tried to return several times, but the project has never gone ahead. In December 2022, the Guinean cabinet announced that it was terminating the contract under which it had granted the company an exploration licence.

Last March, Malam Sambu announced that the bauxite exploration licence was open to offers after the Guinean government considered that Bauxite Angola had abandoned the concession.

MB/ADB // ADB.

Lusa