A business delegation from Singapore this week visited Angola and Mozambique, looking for new business opportunities in the two African countries, as part of an initiative led by Deputy Foreign Minister Masagos Zulkifli.

With a delegation made up of about twenty companies in the oil and gas, agri-business, industrial, technology and communication, trade and financial services sectors, the mission’s first stop was Angola, on Tuesday, the day that the governments of both countries signed a memorandum of understanding for the trade sector.

Improved relation led to officials from the Singaporean government getting involved in organising business forums with Singapore wanting to improve its cooperation with the the two largest economies amongst the Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP).

With trade totalling US$1.2625 billion in 2014, trade relations with Angola are the clearly the most important for Singapore, whose exports to the Angolan economy reached US$1.129 billion, more than double the amount recorded in 2013 (US$510.7 million).

Angola, which mainly exports oil products and derivatives to Singapore, has a large trade deficit with the Asian country, whose imports were just US$133.5 million dollars, a situation that also occurs with Mozambique, although on a different scale.

In 2014, trade between Singapore and Mozambique fell about 60 percent to US$130.2 million, but this was due to a drop in Mozambican imports, as the country kept its exports at around US$4 million.

On Thursday, Zulkifli, whose visit to Mozambique was the first by a Singapore official to the country, said the oil and gas, agriculture and infrastructure sectors were of greatest interest to Singaporean companies.

Zulkifli, who is also the deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Singapore said the two governments would study the “creation of a legal framework to facilitate investments”, which may include agreements for facilitating visa allocation. (macauhub/MZ)