4 February 2019
The African Development Bank (AfDB) recommends coastal African countries, including Portuguese-speaking countries, to expand port infrastructure as a means of improving integration on the continent.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) recommends coastal African countries, including Portuguese-speaking countries, to expand port infrastructure as a means of improving integration on the continent.
Sonangol, the national oil company of Angola, is close to sales of assets that should earn it billions of dollars and enable it to reduce its heavy debts and invest more in the oil sector, the engine of Angola’s economy.
Angola’s President João Lourenço has turned his attention to the port sector, both in an effort to assert his authority politically and also to improve the ports themselves. Angola has four main existing and planned ports running north to south: Caio in Cabinda, Luanda and the associated planned port of Barra do Dande, Lobito and Namibe, but Luanda is currently by far the most important. However, more capacity will be needed if the non-oil economy picks up as hoped, while mining export capacity is needed further south.
Angola has taken another step towards reforming the oil sector, the country’s main source of revenue, with the creation of the National Oil and Gas Agency (ANPG), made official this month.
The World Bank has revised its economic growth forecasts for Angola, Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) and Mozambique in 2019 and 2020 upwards, unlike Guinea-Bissau.
The Angolan government appears determined to reform oil company Sonangol in an effort to reverse the country’s declining oil fortunes. President João Lourenço has made it clear that he intends to overhaul the firm ever since he replaced Isabel dos Santos with Carlos Saturnino as chairperson of the parastatal.
China and the Portuguese-speaking countries were linked in 2018 by a number of new ventures, and the process of getting closer continues in the new year under the New Silk Road.
Rising domestic production and import substitution has become a major concern for the new Angolan government, which now aims to stimulate the economy through new investments and prevent the outflow of foreign exchange.
Angola’s Private Investment Law (LIP) regulation, which entered into force on 30 October, increases tax benefits for investors, at a time when the country intends to stimulate its non-oil economy and the export sector.
China’s support to Angola following the Angolan President’s recent visit to Beijing reached US$6 billion, João Lourenço said in a recent interview with Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso.
Brazil, Mozambique and Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) have fallen back a few places in the latest edition of the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum, in which Angola is in the lowest position among Portuguese-speaking countries.
Angola obtained additional funding of US$2 billion from China, less than the US$11 billion sought, as China became more prudent in its lending to the African nation.
Economic relations with Africa have been losing importance for Brazil’s governments, which ignore the continent’s potential, unlike China and other emerging economies, according to the Brazil-Africa Institute.
Macau’s Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) is looking to increase support for the more than 40,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the territory, said Carlos Cid Álvares, the bank’s chief executive told the Tribuna de Macau newspaper.
The World Economic Forum last year forecast that Angola, alongside Mozambique, would be among the ten fastest growing leisure tourism destinations worldwide over the next decade.
The Angolan government has approved the creation of a National Council of Public Works (CNOP) to coordinate major state works, replacing other existing structures under Presidential Decree No. 202/18, which came into force on 31 August.
Logistics and Distribution Centres, with a central role in wholesale and retail supply and price formation, are open to the private sector in Angola, under new legislation already in force.
Credit granted by Chinese banks will support the financing needs of the Angolan State Budget for this year, which should signal a multi-level policy shift for the country, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Since China became Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009, trade has continued to flourish, aided by cooperative frameworks put in place by the Chinese government and its African counterparts. The momentum is expected to build over the medium term, and the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation in September is likely to help ensure that these increasingly close economic ties become even closer.
Five of the six Portuguese-speaking African countries are on the list of 44 states that have subscribed to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) project, which received a generally positive reception from civil society.
