Cabo Verde Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva has promised in Sunday to have enacted this year legislation to set up a maritime special economic zone on the island of São Vicente, which China will back, Inforpress reports.

The Cabo Verde state-run news agency quotes Mr Correia e Silva as saying the legislation will contain inducements for private investors, namely to join public-private partnerships, to develop in the zone a container terminal, a shipyard and a facility for exporting fish.

Mr Correia e Silva expects to have within months money to build a campus for a maritime university campus in the zone, and to build a vocational training school there, Inforpress says.

In September last year Inforpress quoted Cabo Verde Foreign Minister Luís Filipe Tavares as saying that the government was seeking Chinese financing for the zone. Chinese specialists were backing the feasibility studies for the project.