Congo’s Minister of Transport, Civil Aviation and Merchant Marine, Josué Rodrigue Ngouonimba, has reported talks with a Mozambican delegation in Brazzaville on updating the bilateral instruments that govern air transport between the two countries and on improving air connectivity. The delegation, led by Mozambique’s Secretary of State for Transport, Chinguane Mabote, was received on 6 October 2026 within the Congo-Mozambique Joint Commission, on the sidelines of President Daniel Francisco Chapo’s official visit to Congo from 6 to 7 October.
In Ngouonimba’s account, Mabote set out his Government’s willingness to revitalise bilateral cooperation in transport, the air sector in particular, and its interest in opening a direct Brazzaville–Maputo link. Such a link would let the Mozambican community established in Congo travel in better conditions, without transiting through several African capitals. Drawing on his own experience of the route, Mabote considered it necessary to revise agreements that had become obsolete. The last cooperation agreements between the two countries were signed in 1975, under Marien Ngouabi and Samora Moïses Machel.
The Mozambican delegation also took an interest in Congo’s experience of multimodal transport and recalled the importance of the merchant navy to the economic development of both countries, taking the view that the agreement reached in that area will allow trade to intensify. Ngouonimba welcomed the step and assured the Mozambican side of his department’s full availability. He hopes both parties will ensure effective implementation of the 10 cooperation agreements signed at the end of the official visit, the merchant navy agreement in particular, which he presented as the condition for honouring the commitment made by Presidents Denis Sassou N’Guesso and Chapo.
Four weeks earlier, on 8 September 2026, Ngouonimba received Morocco’s Ambassador to Congo, Najoua El Berrak, to review air transport cooperation, in particular the Royal Air Maroc service between Brazzaville and the Casablanca hub. He described that link as a route for economic, academic and tourist exchanges and a gateway to Africa, Europe and the Americas for Congolese passengers, and recorded that he, El Berrak and Royal Air Maroc Director General Fouad Razak reaffirmed a shared wish to consolidate the cooperation, improve the quality of service and explore the development opportunities it holds.
Ngouonimba placed the Moroccan meeting within President Sassou N’Guesso’s emphasis on air connectivity as part of an ambition to make Congo a sub-regional and tourist hub, and described Congo as resolutely committed to concrete South-South cooperation in the service of African integration and the development of its economies.
