Oct 18, 2022 - It is a great honor to welcome Mr. Mario Vincent to give a lecture on the trade situation of Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, regional economic cooperation, for our IBC third-year students. Mario Vincent was nominated (2011-2017) as delegate of Cape Verde to China and Portuguese Speaking Country Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum (Forum Macau).  He has experience of international trade promotion and economic cooperation, specially about Africa and Portuguese Speaking Country.

Beside introduced the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea, from the aspects of population, per capita income, total GDP, resources, and development, Mr. Mário Vicente also presented the regional economic cooperation between those countries, as well as their trade relationship with China.

Among them, Cape Verde is the hometown of Mr. Mario Vincent, which is a very beautiful place with blue sky and clean beach, attracting many tourists from European countries. Although Cape Verde lacks natural resources, due to its small population and political stability, tourism alone is enough to become a very comfortable country, and its living standard ranks among the top in African countries. Apart from tourism, Cape Verde's main economic sources include remittances from overseas Chinese, agriculture, shipping and so on. Portugal is Cape Verde's largest trading partner, and other major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, Brazil, and People's Republic of China (PRC).

Through this class, we learned not only the basic situation of several Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, but also the trade situation between Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and China, especially in resource trade and infrastructure construction, where China invested a lot.

We are incredibly grateful to Echo Chan for inviting Mr. Mario Vincent, and we are very glad that Mr. Mario Vincent shared a lot of meaningful knowledge.

Prepared by Frank (IBC – 3rd year student, subject of International Trade)