Maputo, Mozambique, 7 April – Mozambican bank, Banco Internacional de Moçambique (Millennium BIM), which is majority owned by Portugal’s Millenium BCP, recently signed a cooperation agreement with the Bank of China, the bank’s chief executive, João Figueiredo said Monday in Macau.

The protocol aims to “facilitate bank transfers by individuals and companies between China, Macau, Hong Kong and Mozambique,” said Figueiredo, who in the 1990s was a board member of the Macau subsidiary of Portuguese bank, Banco Totta e Açores.

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference of governors of the central banks of Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, Figueiredo also said that the protocol “is a first step in terms of boosting relations between these economies,” and that “other opportunities may emerge.”

As well as this, he said, BIM “has an investment banking area and its is likely to be a privileged means of channelling information and boosting the relationship between one side and the other.”

In relation to an agreement signed between the Macau Monetary Authority and the Bank of Mozambique, Figueiredo said that he saw in the partnership, “political willingness on both sides,” to establish greater proximity between Macau and Maputo, with the special administrative region of China performing the role it has always had of a bridge between China and countries such as Mozambique. (macauhub)