São Tomé and Príncipe possesses agricultural and maritime resources that can play an important role in its economic development. For Abnildo d’Oliveira, however, their true potential lies not only in increasing production, but in ensuring that the country can generate greater value from what it already produces.

This vision requires attention to the entire economic journey of a product: from production and harvesting or capture to preservation, processing, commercialisation and market access. The more stages of this process that can be developed viably within the country, the greater the potential to create economic activity and retain value within the national economy.

This approach is particularly relevant in sectors such as agriculture and fisheries, where the challenge is not simply to possess resources, but to develop the capabilities required to make better use of them. The underlying question is straightforward: what can São Tomé and Príncipe do to capture more economic value from its own resources before that value is generated outside the country?

Generating More Value in São Tomé and Príncipe: From Primary Production to Local Processing

Agriculture offers one of the clearest examples of this approach. The economic potential of products such as cocoa, coffee, vanilla and pepper does not necessarily end with their production as raw materials.

Selection, processing, transformation, packaging and commercialisation can add new stages to the economic value chain and enable a greater proportion of the final value associated with these products to be generated locally.

For Abnildo d’Oliveira, this is one of the issues that should occupy a central place in the debate on the country’s productive future: the question should not only be how much São Tomé and Príncipe produces, but how much value it is able to create from that production.

Developing this capacity does not depend solely on producers. It requires an assessment of the conditions affecting each value chain, infrastructure needs, preservation and storage, access to financing, technical expertise, entrepreneurial capacity, logistics and genuine market opportunities.

For this reason, the valorisation of national production must be approached according to economic and feasibility criteria. Not every activity can be developed in the same way or at the same pace. The objective is to identify where genuine opportunities for local processing exist and what conditions will be required to turn them into sustainable economic activity.

“We have resources and we have production, but we must ask ourselves how much value we are able to generate from them within São Tomé and Príncipe. Production is essential, but processing what we produce more effectively can open up new opportunities for our producers, our fishers and our businesses. We must identify where we can create more value here, with responsibility, technical capacity and a long-term economic vision.” ABNILDO D’OLIVEIRA

The principle underlying this proposal is that producing more may be important, but generating greater value from what is produced represents an additional step in economic development.

Where local capacity exists to incorporate additional stages into a value chain, new activities can emerge in processing, preservation, logistics, commercialisation and service provision. This can broaden the economic base associated with the same resource without assuming that all benefits will materialise immediately.

The impact on incomes, employment, exports or the substitution of certain imports will depend on the feasibility of each initiative and on effective implementation. For this reason, these elements should be understood as potential outcomes of greater productive and processing capacity, rather than as guaranteed effects from the outset.

Agriculture and the Blue Economy as Sources of Greater Economic Activity Within the Country

The same reasoning applies to the sea.

Fisheries and the blue economy can generate greater economic activity when the analysis extends beyond the catch itself and also considers opportunities for preservation, transformation, processing and commercialisation of fishery resources.

For an island nation such as São Tomé and Príncipe, assessing maritime resources solely in terms of extraction would mean overlooking a significant part of their economic potential. The challenge is to determine which additional activities can be developed sustainably and competitively within the country.

This requires an assessment of practical considerations. The availability of preservation systems, cold-chain requirements, infrastructure, product quality and safety, market access, financing and the organisation of different activities will all shape any progress.

The objective should not be to increase resource exploitation without adequate criteria, but rather to make better use of what can be utilised sustainably and to build a more complete economic value chain around those resources.

This approach can also help strengthen the position of producers and fishers. Where better conditions exist for preserving, processing or commercialising a product, those participating in the earliest stages of the value chain have greater opportunities to access new economic possibilities.

The importance that Abnildo d’Oliveira attaches to this issue stems precisely from the relationship between national resources, value creation and domestic economic capacity. The proposal is not to present agriculture or fisheries as isolated solutions, but to integrate them into a broader strategy of productive diversification.

In this context, reducing external vulnerabilities does not mean claiming that São Tomé and Príncipe can immediately produce everything it currently imports. It means increasing, wherever viable, the country’s capacity to produce more, process more effectively and depend less on economic activities in which most of the value is generated beyond its borders.

The economic priorities incorporated within the Nossa Terra framework include the development of agribusiness, the valorisation of agricultural products, local processing and the blue economy as part of this vision for strengthening productive capacity. Their relevance will depend on the ability to translate these proposals into technically defined measures adapted to the country’s actual conditions.

Within this framework, the Nossa Terra message — “Luz na casa. Comida na mesa. Governo limpo.” — also finds a concrete expression in the development of agriculture, fisheries and local production. “Comida na mesa” connects this broader commitment to the country’s capacity to produce, process and generate greater value from its own resources, creating stronger economic opportunities for families, producers and local communities.

Abnildo d’Oliveira therefore places a concrete question at the centre of the economic debate: São Tomé and Príncipe should not merely exploit its resources; it should work to ensure that a greater share of the wealth those resources can generate is created and retained within the country.

Agriculture, fisheries and local processing can contribute to this objective if they are developed through planning, appropriate investment, access to knowledge and strong connections to markets. The challenge is to move progressively from an economy that primarily commercialises raw production towards one with greater capacity to process, differentiate and commercialise its own value-added products.

That is the principle at the heart of the proposal: to ensure that the resources of São Tomé and Príncipe generate more economic opportunities within São Tomé and Príncipe.