LUANDA – Angola’s Economy and Planning Minister Mário Augusto Caetano João says that his country is seeking to diversify its economy and welcomes more Chinese investment and cooperation as this will be a win-win opportunity.
In a recent interview with Xinhua in the capital Luanda, the minister said that economic diversification, mainly diversifying from the oil sector to the development of non-oil sectors, has been one of the country’s main goals over the past five years.
He noted that the country has made progress in economic diversification over the years even though it remains a major challenge.
“In 2011, the oil sector accounted for 43 percent of our GDP. And 10 years later in 2021, it accounted only for 28 percent. So it means 72 percent [of GDP] is now being pushed by the non-oil sector,” he said.
The minister also said that he regarded agribusiness and human capital development, as well as improving the environment for doing business in Angola as three pillars as the country continues with its drive to diversify its economy over the next five years.
“Agribusiness is the biggest determinant of growth nowadays in Angola. When I say agribusiness, I mean agriculture, trade, transportation, agro-processing, and everything within the value chain of the agribusiness sector,” said the minister, who also predicted an average annual growth rate of five percent for the non-oil sector and 3.5 percent for the overall GDP growth over the next five years in the resource-rich southern African country.
“We need to do big investments in agribusiness, especially in infrastructure to make sure that everything produced has a market... We need to invest in the agro-processing industries, and in crop production,” he said, highlighting the growth of corn, rice, wheat, and beans as extremely important to the nation’s food security.
He also said that agri-business development will also require the development of energy and water sectors as well as roads. “We have already a lot of Chinese companies investing in the agri-business. And even the biggest corn producer in Angola’s Malanje province is Chinese,” he said.
Commending the fruitful Angola-China cooperation results, especially in the infrastructure development over the years, the minister said that Angola welcomes Chinese engagement in Angola’s economic diversification endeavor as this will be a win-win opportunity.
Caetano João noted that Angola has up to 60 million hectares of arable land, almost half the size of arable land in China, and a low population density of about 30 people per square kilometer.
“So we have a lot of land where we would like to invite Chinese investors to grow Chinese products and to export to China. This will be something very interesting because we saw also that China has offered duty-free and quota-free access for Angolan goods into China. So this could be a win-win opportunity,” he said.
The minister also said that the government will also build human capital capacity by improving the health and education sectors as human capital is one of the most important determinants of growth.
“The third but not least important is [improving] business environment. We need to make sure that everyone is able to open his own business and run his own business, have access to finance, and actually be one of the most important employers in our economy,” he said.
“In the health sector, we need to start producing our own medicines, not only for human consumption but also for animal consumption. And on digital transformation, you see now that a big chunk of the market is done digitally. Digital transformation is where we see also business happening. Another thing is, of course, the financial sector,” he said.
“These are the areas where we think we could see much higher cooperation with China to help us really diversify our economy,” he said.
Caetano João also said that Angola looks forward to more Chinese investment, especially from the private sector. “We have a stock of Chinese investments in Angola totaling around US$20 billion. Of course, we would like it to be much higher.”
He pointed out that Angola is paying close attention to what are the determinants of growth and where they are. He singled out the nation’s burgeoning youth as a group the government intends to put more resources and money into, saying the government also tries to work closely with entrepreneurs to understand the determinants of growth.
“This is where we want to put resources so that once those determinants are well tackled, I’m sure that Angola will make the appropriate jump,” he said. – Xinhua, MPD
Undated file photo of Angola’s Economy and Planning Minister Mário Augusto Caetano João posing at his office in Luanda – Photo courtesy of Mercado
