Macau, China, June 21, 2024 (Lusa) - The 15th International Forum on Infrastructure Investment and Construction ended on Friday in Macau with the signing of 38 agreements, the largest of which involved projects in Angola and Brazil, one of the organisers announced.
The president of the China Association of International Civil Engineering Contractors said that during the three days, the forum welcomed more than 3,500 guests from more than 70 countries and regions on all continents.
At a press conference, Fang Qiuchen added that the agreements signed during the forum involved 22 countries and regions and a total value of US$13 billion (€12.2 million).
At the same conference, the president of the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute revealed that "the largest-scale projects include infrastructure projects in two Portuguese-speaking countries, namely Angola and Brazil".
In addition, "some Macau construction companies have signed memoranda of co-operation to carry out infrastructure projects in Timor-Leste," said Vincent U U Sang.
Hours earlier, Angola's Minister for Public Works, Urbanism and Housing, Carlos dos Santos, told Lusa that he had reached an agreement with the Chinese state company China Road and Bridge Corporation to build the country's first motorway.
"This motorway, which is around 1,400 kilometres long, will connect the southern part of Angola with neighbouring Namibia, to the northern part of Angola, with the Democratic Republic of Congo," he explained.
The Chinese group is expected to complete the studies by the "middle or end of 2025" and the minister predicted that construction would begin "at the end of 2025 or in 2026," with the work estimated at US$2.5 billion (€2.33 billion).
On Thursday, Angola's Minister of Energy and Water told Macau public television TDM that the country would be signing agreements with two Chinese state companies, Powerchina and a subsidiary of China State Grid.
João Baptista Borges explained that the memoranda provide for the construction of electricity transmission systems to increase the electrification rate in southern Angola and to export energy to neighbouring countries.
Borges had earlier given a speech at the forum calling for private Chinese investment in the generation and supply of electricity in Angola.
Borges argued that this sector is "a market opportunity given the country's industrial potential, its regional economic integration, as well as its internal consumption potential".
Also on Thursday, the Brazilian infrastructure, transport and services concession group CCR signed an agreement with a Chinese company for the engineering project to extend a railway line in São Paulo, in south-eastern Brazil.
CCR's executive director, Márcio Magalhães Hannas, told TDM that the 15-kilometre extension, estimated at five billion yuan (€644 million), would serve 85,000 more passengers each working day.
The bottled water company Timor Macau Agua Nova Unipessoal, Lda signed agreements with companies in Macau and the neighbouring Hengqin Special Economic Zone (Mountain Island) on Thursday as well.
The company's general director, Lao Kam Chio, told TDM that the initial investment will be US$2 million (€1.87 million), but could increase with the expansion of co-operation to markets in Portuguese Language Countries in Africa.
VQ/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
