Africa-Press – Angola. The Vice-President of the Republic, Esperança Costa, arrived, on Friday night, in the city of Ankara, Turkey, for the investiture ceremony of the country’s re-elected president, Recep Erdogan.
At Esenbonğa International Airport, Esperança Costa, representing the Angolan President, João Lourenço, was received by the Angolan Ambassador to Turkey, José Patrício, and by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Esmeralda Mendonça.
The investiture ceremony will take place this Saturday, at the Presidential Palace, followed by an official dinner, at Çankaya Palace, in the presence of high-ranking dignitaries.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected last Sunday (28), in the second round of presidential elections, for a new five-year term.
The re-elected President won the victory with 52.54% of the votes, against 47.9% of the social democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, in a suffrage that had around 64 million voters. In the first round, adherence to the polls was 93.6%.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which supports Erdogan, had already won an absolute majority in the Legislatures, which took place on the same day as the first round of the Presidential elections, winning 325 of the 600 parliamentary seats.
The second round had the two most voted candidates in the first (Erdogan, who collected 49.51% of the votes, and Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the main opponent and leader of the Republican People’s Party and a coalition of six parties, with 44.88% ).
Turkey has about 85 million inhabitants and more than 61 million registered voters, in a process where voting is mandatory.
Relationship with Africa
Erdogan’s re-election takes place in a complex context for Turkey, which continues to gradually intensify political and economic ties with African countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, a process that began over the last 16 years.
According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “relations with Africa constitute one of the main guidelines of Turkish foreign policy”.
In the last 10 years, for example, the Turkish diplomatic presence on the continent has almost quadrupled, when, in 2009, there were only 12 Turkish embassies in all of Africa.
Available data indicate that this number increased to 42 in 2019. The country has economic cooperation agreements with at least 47 of the 55 African countries.
Turkey’s trade volume with sub-Saharan Africa increased from one billion dollars (834 billion euros) in 2002 to 7.6 billion dollars in 2019.
Data indicate that, over the last 18 years, Turkey has increased its presence in Africa and invested close to USD 100 million in 2003 and around USD 6.5 billion in direct investment in 2021.
In the period from 2003 to 2019, trade with Africa has increased nearly fivefold, with 51 African cities now served by Turkish Airlines.
The volume of trade between Africa and Turkey grew by US$5.4 billion in 2019, to US$26.2 billion, according to figures from the 3rd Economic and Business Forum between the parties held, at the time, via video -conference.
In the specific case of Angola, by 2021, it had registered around USD 200 million in investments of Turkish origin, with emphasis on the mining and steel sectors.
Angola and Turkey marked the new impetus and deepening of their bilateral cooperation relations, with the visits of the Head of State of Angola to Turkey and of his Turkish counterpart to Angola, which culminated in the signing of several Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding in the most various domains.
The two Heads of State committed themselves at the time to doubling the flow of commercial exchanges in the coming years, aspiring to the annual goal of five hundred million dollars, through mutually advantageous partnerships.
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