Angola’s president urges private sector to ‘be more ambitious’ to increase production

The Angolan president said on Tuesday that Angola is already producing a lot but still not producing enough, encouraging the private sector “to be more ambitious so that production levels come closer and closer to the country’s needs.”

João Lourenço, who opened the 38th International Fair in Luanda (Filda) today, said in press statements that during his visit to the premises he noticed that “the production is in full view”.

“What we would like to do is encourage the private sector of our economy to be more ambitious so that production levels approach the needs of the country, the population, in order to export the surplus. We have to be more and more ambitious.” Joao Lawrence said.

The country’s economy will only be strong when it has a strong private sector, the Angolan president said, expressing his commitment in terms of policy and incentives for the private business sector to “take over its role.”

“We are at a stage when we have already demonstrated the political will of the state to leave the economy and become a regulator. The clear signal we gave was the program [de privatizações] Ownership Many state assets, which we understand should not remain in the hands of the state, we transfer them through public auction to the private sector, which, without a shadow of a doubt, knows how to do better than the state than the public sector,” he said.

The Special Economic Zone, the Angolan president continued, is one example where “absolutely no production” was registered before privatization.

“The state has made big investments here, but it has not been able to take advantage of the corresponding investments made, and we noticed the difference, as if overnight, from the moment we made the decision to privatize these facilities,” he stressed.

With regard to attracting foreign private investment to Angola, João Lourenço stressed that it is still unsatisfactory, so the country “still continues to struggle, defend and strive to attract foreign direct investment to Angola.”

“This is what we have done in most of our overseas missions, the visits we make, at the executive level, at the ministerial level, at AIPEX [agência de promoção das exportações]. We have been working to create a good business environment on the one hand, on the other hand, saying that in terms of the business environment it is much better, so it’s time for us to land in Angola to make the investments that we would like see,” he said.

João Lourenço underlined the presence of 15 countries participating this year in Filda, which “shows confidence” in the Angolan market and in the measures the government is taking to facilitate foreign investment.

“They notice that visas for both tourists and investors, especially for investors, are becoming easier to obtain, they notice that there is a seriousness in the fight that we are waging in the fight against corruption, no one is going to extort money from them for that fact that investing in Angola,” he said.

The presence of so many exhibitors this year at Filda is “faith” in what Angola has been defending for the past five years in terms of fighting corruption, João Lourenço said.

“They are really starting to believe that this is true and they have their embassies here, as do some investors who have already established companies here in Angola (…) exhibitors, I believe that in the coming years we will have much more,” he said.

In his opening remarks at the Field, the President of Angola reaffirmed his commitment to improving the business environment and also announced the start of several road works, water supply and power supply.

“We reaffirm our conviction that diversification is the only sure path to inclusive economic and social growth,” stressed Joao Lourenço.

Associação Empresarial de Portugal (AEP) and 22 Portuguese companies are participating in the Filda, which will last until Saturday.