The Minister of Tourism, Márcio Daniel, warned, this Friday, in Lubango, of the need for Angola to seek experience from other regions to take greater advantage of the area of transboundary conservation of the Okavango-Zambezi, currently little explored.

The minister, who spoke at the central event of World Tourism Day, celebrated Friday, 27th, stated that the country is committed in taking advantage of this transboundary conservation area and the challenges include investing in road infrastructure, electricity supply, communications and border posts.

The Angolan component of this transboundary Okavango/Zambezi conservation area is 90 thousand square kilometers, integrated by the municipalities of Cuito-Cuanavale, Mavinga, Rivungo, Dirico and Nankova and an integral part of two national parks, Luenga Luiana and Mavinga.

For the minister “it is not tolerable” that the same landscape, wildlife, abundance of water resources mean for Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia, thousands of tourists, foreign exchange resources, jobs and for Angola only nature unexplored.

“We have to change the state of things. It's not about inventing the wheel. This was invented several years ago and has been perfected. We just have to have the humility to learn from those who already do nature tourism and do it well”, he said.

He highlighted that alongside this learning, if Angola aims to have the quality of service that exists in neighboring countries, there is a need to attribute to the national business community the incentives and working conditions that the Governments of these countries attribute to their entrepreneurs, under penalty of continuing to lose out to neighboring competition.

The Government, according to the minister, is carrying out the structuring of a line of financing dedicated to tourism, as without a serious in financing and giving traction to entrepreneurs, all the talk about tourism for the diversification of the economy is not will pass from paper.

To this end, Márcio Daniel said that the ministry works on the diversification and sophistication of financing sources for the activity tourism, with the introduction of the tourist tax into the National Legal System, to strengthen resilience and the guarantee system, necessary to cushion the risk of credit borrowers within the financial system.

The celebrations of World Tourism Day invite everyone to reflect on the fundamental role that tourism plays in strengthening global peace and development. This year it takes place under the motto "Tourism and Peace",

Tourism is a crucial vehicle for promoting mutual understanding, unity between people and economic and social progress.

The Okavango/Zambezi (KASA) regional project, launched in 1993, constitutes the largest cross-border initiative on the African Continent, with 444 thousand 462 square kilometers. Connects 36 conservation areas in Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, in the Southern African region.EM/MS

https://angop.ao/noticias/ tourism/angola-wants-internal-investment-in-the-exploration-of-okavango-zambezi/