Cape Verde will reinforce the operational capacity of its Coast Guard with helicopters, to be acquired from Chinese military companies with financing from the People’s Republic of China. The news was announced by National Defense Minister Cristina Fontes Lima in a press conference following yesterday’s Council of Ministers meeting.

The possibility of acquiring helicopters is the result of a military cooperation accord, the first between China and Cape Verde, signed during Cristina Fontes Lima’s recent visit to the People’s Republic of China.

According to the Minister of National Defense, yesterday’s Council of Ministers meeting was used to review the results of this visit, as well as of Prime Minister José Maria Neves’ recent participation in the United Nations General Assembly and his trip to the Portuguese autonomous region of Madeira, where he participated in a meeting of the heads of government of the European Union’s ultra-peripheral regions.

The Council of Ministers also approved a resolution admitting an additional 120 employees into the National Police force and 371 into the nation’s educational system, most of them teachers. The cabinet also approved two law decrees, one approving the new statutes of the Order of Engineers of Cape Verde and another establishing the regimes regulating lawyers’ associations.

Source: A Semana