After Angola missed its foreign investment target because spending on road and hydropower projects lagged behind, the country has decided to invest in projects ranging from ports to airports to lure greater funding, according to Angola’s investment agency said.
Angola is expected to attract $4 billion a year in non-oil international investments by 2017, failing to meet its target to register an average of $4 billion annually from 2012 to 2017, Maria Luisa Abrantes, chairwoman of the National Private Investment Agency, told Bloomberg.
“For a country coming from war, we’re just taking off and like a jet plane, we need to attain cruising altitude,” Abrantes said. “It’s very difficult for investors to come to a country without infrastructure, but they need to visit and have a goal so they’ll know in which area to invest to get a return.”
Angola, which is Africa’s biggest crude oil producer after Nigeria, aims to spur the economy through investments in a wider range of industries including farming, real estate, tourism and telecommunications, following a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.
According to Abrantes, ports are under construction or planned in Cabinda, Zaire and Bengo provinces, while a new cargo terminal is operating in Viana and an international airport is being built near Viana. And, the Benguela Railway connecting Angola’s coast on the Atlantic Ocean to Zambia is nearly finished.
“These are going to attract investors,” Abrantes said.
“Improving Angola’s inadequate road networks and unreliable power system, which is among the least efficient in Africa, to the level of a middle-income nation could help boost annual growth by 2.9 percentage points a year, according to the World Bank. Addressing infrastructure challenges would require investment of $2.1 billion over a decade, the bank said,” reports Bloomberg.
International investment in Angolan industries excluding oil was $1.9 billion by the end of September, compared with $2.3 billion for all of last year, Abrantes said.
Among other ventures are hotels and sugar plants. Earlier this year, agreements were signed by the investment agency include a $282 million hotel complex on Luanda Bay by M&J Pestana-Sociedade de Turismo da Madeira SA. There was also a sugar plantation deal by Cia. de Bioenergia de Angola Lda. worth $452 million, Abrantes said.
Salvador, Brazil-based Odebrecht SA and Angola-based Damer Industria SA each own a 40 percent stake, while the state-run petroleum company Sonangol Holdings holds a 20 percent stake.
Among other investments are a $103 million hotel complex offshore Luanda known as Ilha da Cazanga, $66 million of investments by cable operators Zon TV Cabo Portugal SA, and a $29 million bottling plant for Portugese beverage company Sumol+Compal.
