Luanda, Angola, 13 Feb – The Angolan authorities are carrying out a pilot project in Porto Amboim in Kwanza Sul province to increase coffee production in Angola, according to information from Angolan coffee association, Cafangol.

The project, budgeted at US$8.5 million, includes growing robusta coffee in an area of around 17,000 hectares in order to have annual coffee production of 40,000 tons, which would make 650,000 sacks of coffee.

Figures for 2005 showed that coffee production in Angola totaled just 75,000 sacks, far below production in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, Africa’s main coffee growers.

Cafangol, the entity charged by the government with placing Angolan coffee on the international market, said that a ton of coffee was currently selling at around US$1,000.

The government plans for Angola to once again become one of the world’s coffee producing nations, as was the case in the 1970s when it was the fourth largest producer in the world.

Angolan production currently does not reach a tenth of what it was in 1976.

According to Procafé, after the end of the civil war the Angolan coffee sector began to see significant growth, despite the difficulties it still faces, with production rising from 800 tons to 5,000 tons per year.

Brazil remained the world’s largest producer and exporter of coffee in 2006 with 44 million sacks, of which 27.2 million were for export, which represented sales of some US$3.3 billion. (macauhub)