Portuguese PM vows to enhance cooperation with Cape Verde

DAKAR, March 13 -- Visiting Portuguese Prime Minister Jose

Socrates on Thursday vowed to bring his country's cooperation with Cape Verde to

a new level, the Pan-African News Agency (PANA) reported.

Socrates, who arrived in Praia, the capital city of the former Portuguese

colony, for a three-day visit, was quoted as saying he would propose to

officials of Cape Verde a new phase of cooperation programs.

There "exists a level of maturity" in bilateral relations, which, however,

need a new model to promote cooperation in different fields, said the Portuguese

premier.

Socrates said he came up with "an agenda of the more ambitious, which

honors the history and the links between the two peoples."

"It is for this that I am in Cape Verde with an important delegation of

ministers and secretaries of state," he added. Socrates stressed the proposed

new-phase cooperation will center on the most modern areas, without elaborating.

Cape Verde, a 10-island Atlantic archipelago 500 km off the West African

coast, declared independence on July 5, 1975. The island state of half a million

population is being hit by the global financial crisis, with its money making

industry of tourism bearing the brunt and investments tailing off.