A DIFFERENT COUNTRY: MANUAL FOR TRADE AND BUSINESS

Not everyone lives in Equatorial Guinea in a hurry to steal and go live abroad, and that is why those who slander do it with the misuse of their bad imagination.

When I write about my country, I do so with the peace of mind that I do not have any secret account or any hidden assets abroad bought with public money, like most of the Equatoguinean sons of the People, with whom I always identify myself.

Since always, those inside and those outside, have tried to invent any movie about me, because they do not know me at all and I do not frequent groups of fools and I do not want to meet them either, because I know them all well enough from afar.

Not everyone is here to waste time or to talk about things that contribute nothing to the socio-economic, industrial and technological development of our country, my Guinea.

Politics is a very convenient excuse for those who do not know how to do anything else but slander, steal and hide, and for those who want to do the same afterwards.

That is why in my opinion, the poor (as is the case of most of our population in terms of their purchasing power compared to the cost of living) must always be given the reason even if they do not have it, because everything else is already being taken away from them, which is their real wealth.

And I always reiterate that if a government does not make its people rich and prosperous, it is not because it cannot, but because it does not want to or does not know how; and I am not saying it, Confucius is saying it, and he is not wrong.

The true wealth of a country is measured in the level of satisfaction of its population and not only in festive moments or in bars.

Socioeconomic satisfaction creates political stability, socioeconomic dissatisfaction creates political instability: there has never been any state, country or region that has had political stability with socioeconomic dissatisfaction.

As long as we do not understand this, we will continue to jump, dance and sing, and drink beers, but we will not create a different history if we do not do things differently: as a different country.

This endeavor to create poverty in Africa by force is the stupidest system of creating problems for oneself, i.e., self-sabotage.

It gets murkier when the governed people get used to being spoon fed directly into their mouths, creating a chronic dependency on subsidies and anything of the same nature.

But when you assert, condemn, criticize, point out and even ridicule all the efforts made in the country to overcome underdevelopment it is simply because you have no idea what it takes to build a Nation.

When I write about my country, Equatorial Guinea, I do so with all the tranquility of someone who knows he owes nothing to anyone, like many in my country.

It is very easy to talk for the sake of talking when you do not know how to do anything, and that is what is called ''doing politics'' in Equatorial Guinea.

I recommend those who do not know how to do anything and just talk for the sake of talking to first learn something productive for themselves and for the country, and then if they want and have nothing to do, instead of doing nothing better write something, who knows, maybe they will manage to fix their world.

 That is the difference between wisdom and necessity, between those who think and those who only invent, and that is one of the defects that affect the development of our small country: ''everybody is an expert in everything, but nobody is a specialist in anything, much less in practice.''

Experience makes a person an expert or not in a subject. 

No one is born knowing everything, just as no one becomes an expert in anything overnight.

One of the real problems in developing countries is that everything is left to the last minute, and inexperience is the mother of all failures.

This is the first volume of the Handbook for Trade and Entrepreneurship in Equatorial Guinea.

Thank you for reading these lines.

Javier Clemente Engonga,