Portugal's government on Wednesday said it would cooperate with China in the hope of creating "new Silk Roads" of trade without necessarily becoming an extension of Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative.
Lisbon and Beijing used a two-day state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to ink 17 bilateral cooperation memoranda of understanding including one relating to China's ensemble of investment in infrastructure designed to link Asia, Africa and Europe.
"We are going to pursue (the initiative) in a spirit of openness and mutual gain to create further synergies between our development strategies and underpin the construction of new silk roads," Xi told a news conference.
The Portuguese government welcomed the move on deepening in "a vast range of sectors."
Telecoms operator MEO, subsidy of France's Altice, revealed it has agreed to cooperate with Huawei in order to "accelerate the development of the 5G network in Portugal."
Costa on Wednesday simply underlined "the importance of Portugal's strategic role in linking silk roads with the ensemble of connections between Europe and Asia."