Angola to cancel part of Mozambique’s debt

The Angolan government has agreed to cancel at least part of Mozambique's 40 million US dollar debt to Angola. Angolan Foreign Minister Joao Miranda said that the Finance Ministers of the two countries had been instructed to harmonise the figures on the debt. An agreement would then be reached on how much Angola would write off.
After talks between delegations headed by dos Santos and by his Mozambican counterpart Armando Guebuza, Angolan and Mozambican ministers, in the presence of the two heads of state, signed nine bilateral cooperation agreements, covering the areas of energy, oil, science and technology, geology and mining, agriculture and fisheries, higher education and staff training, the mass media and territorial administration. In the ensuing press conference, Mozambican Foreign Minister Alcinda Abreu said the delegations "concluded that our two countries enjoy peace and tranquillity and are consolidating peace and democracy". They had assessed the economic situation, she added, and concluded that both countries are growing positively, and making efforts to eradicate poverty. "Cooperation between the two countries was judged as excellent only at political and diplomatic level", said Abreu. "But in the last two years cooperation has been growing and extending to other areas". (Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique, Maputo)