Macau, China, March 21, 2025 (Lusa) - The president of Cabo Verde's foreign investment agency, José Almada Dias, challenged Chinese company Shaanxi Construction in Macau on Friday to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the 20,000 hectares that the country has put at the service of tourism.
CV TradeInvest, chaired by Almada Dias, and Shaanxi Construction Engineering Group Corporation (SCEGC, one of the 500 largest companies in the sector worldwide), through one of its vice-presidents, Xiong Bangye, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Macau today, formalising the parties' interest in taking advantage of the Chinese company's “technical, technological and financial capacity” to develop projects in Cabo Verde.
Shaanxi Construction has been in Cabo Verde since 2009, but Almada Dias highlighted new reasons that could attract the Chinese construction giant's renewed interest in the country. These include the City of Praia government's recent investment in the infrastructure of integral tourism development zones (ZDTI), to which it has allocated 20,000 hectares of the archipelago's nine inhabited islands.
"We now have more than 20,000 hectares of special zones earmarked for tourism development," he emphasised.
"Right now, I challenge Shannxi Construction, together with the State of Cabo Verde, to look at the infrastructure of these special zones, which are great opportunities for construction companies," he added, explaining that Cabo Verde's law allows the infrastructure of the zones to be taken over entirely by private companies or in public-private partnerships (PPP), with the State of Cabo Verde or municipalities.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the event, Almada Dias stressed that Cabo Verde's government is "very interested in attracting companies of this type, not only because of the technical quality they bring, their know-how, but above all because of their ability to mobilise significant sums of money", which Cabo Verde "can't mobilise internally".
Xiong Bangye characterised Cabo Verde as "a well-developed political economy" and underlined the multifaceted nature of Shannxi Construction as a "complete company, with businesses in different areas, including housing, real estate, transport, energy, desalination".
"We have tourism concentrated on two islands - Sal and Boa Vista - but we want it to spread throughout the country in a more organised and planned way and to bring benefits to the populations of the nine inhabited islands and beyond," the president of CV TradeInvest explained to Lusa.
From the perspective of Cabo Verde's foreign investment agency, Shannxi Construction offers "technical capacity in various sectors: social housing, real estate, construction".
"These are sectors that interest us, the development of tourism on certain islands is creating a huge need for social housing. We have a fantastic deficit in this sector, which is normal in developing countries. There is a lot of internal migration between the islands, and some come from outside to work."
The ceremony concluded the visit to Macau of the Cabo Verde's ambassador in Beijing, Arlindo do Rosário, who took part in the 20th ordinary meeting of Forum Macau's Permanent Secretariat on Wednesday and was present at the signing of the MoU.
The diplomat emphasised that "there is a lot of market in Cabo Verde for Chinese companies and for companies from other countries", highlighting the priorities established by the country's government in the energy sector, renewable energies, electric mobility, among others, namely in the São Vicente Special Maritime Economic Zone project.
"We have already worked with China to draw up the first phase of the project and there is room for companies from all over the world, including Chinese companies, to enter and invest in this zone," said Arlindo do Rosário.
APL/ADB // ADB.
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