Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me to begin my remarks by once again welcoming His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan and his delegation. I trust you are enjoying our traditional hospitality, seasoned with abundant smiles and typical Mozambican cuisine.

It is always a pleasure to have Your Highness on our homeland soil, indeed I recalled that when I was with your father in France, I repeated this many times. We are sure that wherever you go, you have been our ambassadors promoting our landmark of hospitality and welcoming, to economic and social investment.

Once again, we would like to reiterate our warm greetings to His Excellency, dear brother and friend, President of the Portuguese Republic, friend of the Mozambicans. Just yesterday, I was told that for three hours you were talking to Mozambicans in the coffee shop. You are also a friend of the Aga Khan Development Network, we thought that it was in this light that you could not resist the invitation to be with us at this inauguration ceremony of the Aga Khan Academy.

We can, therefore, say that it is an honour to be present with you at this solemn ceremony of the inauguration of this Academy and to share the history of the growth of this group in Mozambique.

I renew the invitation that I will formally extend to you so that in August we will also be on another mission in Quelimane.

It is with great honour that we inaugurate today the Aga Khan Academy Maputo, in our beautiful city of Matola, Maputo province. This is the 2nd Academy of the Aga Khan Development Network that is implemented in our country.

The ceremony we attended today is a further testimony that our partnership agenda focused on the development will always be a priority, with human capital at its core.

Your Highness the Prince, we have been monitoring with appreciation the implementation of several social and economic projects carried out by the Aga Khan Network that contribute a lot to the development of Mozambique, mostly aligned with the national development programme.

Let me remind you of what we talked about yesterday when the three of us were together.

It doesn't need to be half of this infrastructure, it can even be one third, one third and in partnership with the Aga Khan group we'll build a hospital in Mozambique. It will be different. It will help, it will reduce travel, but taking the words of President Marcelo, it will touch the Man.

Therefore, we are pleased to say that the inauguration of this Academy is part of a far-reaching vision and is part of the reinforcement of the good cooperative relationships that we are establishing with different partners who, with us, dream of building an increasingly prosperous society.

I think you know that we will soon sign again the agreement that is being worked on and this agreement will be an instrument to strengthen our relations.

This Academy is the result of our relationship with this group that we have carried out in recent years, following our interest in expanding its field of activity, aiming for its growth. I am convinced that Mozambique can only succeed in building a prosperous nation if it succeeds in its human capital development programme, which involves promoting universal access to quality education that is capable of meeting the demand of the labour market in quantitative and, above all, qualitative terms.

We encourage the activities developed in Mozambique by the Aga Khan Network, as been referred, like the case of social development programmes, services to promote tourism, with the management of the Polana Serena Hotel as an important mark, services of industrial production such as in textiles here in Matola, the Agricultural Institute of Bilibiza in the province of Cabo Delgado, which unfortunately was the target of a terrorist action.

With the inauguration of this Academy in the city of Matola, I pray that my compatriots from this city and from other corners of our beautiful Mozambique and from the world, may acquire the knowledge and skills that this establishment will offer. The know-how that will come out of here should become a tool capable of driving the socio-economic development of our country and serve everyone without distinction.

I would like to end by thanking everyone here present and those who worked so that this act was crowned with success. And I will say one more thing: Maputo province must take advantage of these infrastructures in a rational manner and within the regulations of this institution. Let it not just be a beauty implanted in the city, but knowledge should come out of this.

To His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan of the Aga Khan Development Network, thank you very much for the initiative, I salute you personally and also thank you for being in person at this event of great importance for Mozambicans.

In particular, I would like to thank my brother, His Excellency Professor Marcelo de Sousa, President of the Portuguese Republic, for his honourable presence at this ceremony, and for the fact that since yesterday we have been directing our attention to important projects for the creation of the well-being of those who need it most.

Thank you very much for your attention.