“Angola has huge potential in agriculture, fisheries, many others for win-win cooperation with Korea”

By Publisher Lee Kyung-sik, Editors Jang Chang Yong, Kevin Lee

“Angola has huge potential in agriculture, fisheries, vehicle assembly, hotels, transport system and other manufacturing sectors,” said visiting Minister of Transport Ricardo Viegas D’Abreu of the Republic Angola at a recent interview with The Korea Post media, publisher of 3 English and 2 Korean-language news publications since 1985.

In an exclusive interview with The Korea Post media, Minister D’Abreu said, “Angola has many attractive programs for foreign investors, including Korean businessmen. There are many areas in my country where Korean businesses can cooperate for mutual benefit, especially in the development of cattle, livestock, fisheries and other agricultural fields.”

Details of the interview follow:

Question: Excellency, welcome to Korea. At this time when Your Excellency visits Korea, we have a very good President, H.E. Yoon Suk-yeol, who is prone to international cooperation and friendship, especially with countries such as that of Your Excellency. So, we consider this a very good juncture.

Answer: Indeed, in Angola, we also have a new President who is in his second term. H.E. President João Lourenço started, last August, his second term in office which gives us also the chance to continue the reform program and the consolidation of this reform agenda started in the first term of the presidency of H.E. João Lourenço.

A reform that was very much focused on the macroeconomic stability of the country, coming from a long recession since 2015. We were able to accomplish the objectives, the macroeconomic stabilization program that allowed the Angolan economy to start a vigorous return to the growth path, reduction of inflation, stabilization of the foreign exchange market, and the most robust fiscal framework.

That reduction also was accomplished throughout this period; therefore, we believe that, on the macroeconomic side, we have now the conditions to accelerate our growth perspectives. On other parts of the reforms, mainly focused on the fight against corruption, it’s one of the flagships of Joao Lourenço’s presidency and the ruling party MPLA, strengthening the rule of law, transparency of the public management processes, allowing the country to be a much more credible not only within the domestic front but also in the international arena where lots of events have happened to exactly promote this new Angola.

So, I think that we are on the right timing, in the right conjunction, as you say, to engage with foreign partners, not only to continue the necessary investment that we have to make in our economy, mainly on the infrastructure, and also in sectors to promote the diversification of our economy.

I would like to highlight that we also are not only creating opportunities in the public finance domain, but also in the private sector, national and internationally, to engage in our economy. So I think that we have the conditions to move, and that’s why we are here also to promote.

Q: Your Excellency came in a very good time. Korea has many companies that are moving out of China and looking for new destinations. What are the areas in your country where these Korean companies could invest if they decide to move to Angola?

A: Well, the diversification program is the new approach for the diversification. The program establishes several priority projects or priority sectors of the economy to promote investment. We have, on one side, what we are calling the program for engagement of the private sectors, through the privatization program.

So, we have several companies that are currently being privatized by the Government in various sectors from agriculture, industry, fisheries, hotels, and mainly those areas.

Q: Including restaurants?

A: Yes, and we have another extreme of projects to promote the diversification as well by the government. One is PLANAGRÃO, is a program that is focusing on the cereals and grains in agriculture.

Angola has a huge potential for agriculture, very rich soils. We are a big country, with reasonable size of lands available for agriculture. But the focus is trying to have, in one side, the self-sufficiency in terms of cereals and crops, in those commodities. But also promoting exports from Angola.

The existing instability in Europe remind us that we have to look after ourselves for not only maize but also wheat. PLANAGRÃO is addressing that potential in terms of cereals and crops, those commodities. We have another program which is PLANAPECUARIA still on the agricultural side, addressing the issue of cattle and livestock.

We have also a great potential there. The objectives, again, are to promote the self-sufficiency, domestically, in food production, but also for exportation, as soon as we reach that capacity. We have also PLANAPESCAS, related to the fishery sector. Indeed, Angola has a long coastline, with a maritime border bigger than our land border. So, the fishing potential of Angola is huge.

Q: What are the main Angola fishes?
A: We have all of them. Since we have 1600 Km of coastline, with several ecosystems throughout the coastline and the south part with the Benguela stream, Angola has what we call the cold-water fishes, pelagic and non-pelagic.

Q: With regard to investment?

A: So those are the programs that we are looking after the diversification. We are also promoting investment from small and medium size companies from local and international investors.

Angola has all the potential to process and transform all these products on the industry side. To that, we are promoting two free zones, one in Luanda - Barra do Dande Free zone, close to Luanda, it’s actually in Bengo, Barra do Dande, and in Cabinda we are also promoting another free zone, exactly to deploy the necessary industries for the processing and exporting goods from Angola.

In the industry sector, as well, we are also definitely engaged in exploring areas that are most needed and the current development also demand our approach to that one is definitely on the vehicle side industry, parts, accessories, and factories to assemble vehicles and, on the technological side as well, we have the possibility to promote innovation, technology, and technology related products. So those are mainly the areas where we can engage and all the supporting services that are needed in the various subsectors.

On the transport sector, for instance, we have opportunities not only in the infrastructure side, but also in engineering construction. We had a chance to meet with the companies interested in investing, also to promote projects in Angola on the infrastructure side and in the services side.

Korea has a very strong footprint on the shipping, shipyards and ship construction and building. Due to our coastline and the opportunities we have on the maritime side, we want to address that as well and the opportunity and the experience of Korea that could be extended to Angola.

Actually, Angola is, through its National Oil Company, building ships in Korea. However, we would like not only to be able to do that in Angola, not in the size of the Korean Shipyards, but at least to have the capability to maintain, repair and support the maritime activities.

As you know, most of our oil production activities are offshore. So, because of that, maritime activities are very important, thus the need to develop, locally, the capacity to support these activities. That is another very important area that we can engage with various opportunities.

Q: Please introduce further the transportation sector.

A: It is one of the biggest challenges, not only for Angola, but also other affecting countries given the growth of the demographic structure, and the urban mobility. Vehicles are critical, public transport is a big challenge; the cities are growing too fast, and we need to be able to have the conditions to not only grow the fleet of busses and transport systems on those cities, but also to maintain and secure a reasonable operation level to support this urban mobility challenge.

We are also seeking to engage in with the vehicle manufacturers to establish assembly lines in Angola. This could benefit not only the Angolan market but also the regional market, such as DRC, Congo Brazzaville, Zambia which are important markets as well that Angola could support.

Q: While in Korea, is there any plan to meet with Korean business class?

A: This is my first visit to Korea and it was related to an event organized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which promoted an event called GISS that is a platform of dialogue and cooperation amongst the member states of ICAO.

I think some of the main challenges in terms of civil aviation. During this period, after COVID, post-COVID and the challenges moving ahead in terms of the development of the civil aviation system. Two or three main aspects we can refer to the agenda items of this event: one is securing the effective implementation by the member states on the standard and recommended practices of the ICAO, allowing all countries to be at the same level of implementation.

And for that, one important requisite is the training capacity available for the countries all over the world. Korea has, again, a very important role there and not only because of the existing capacity in Korea to deploy training and capacity building programs for the member states and we were very pleased to also coordinate with my colleague here from Korea that possibility and the secretary of state for civil aviation as well.

Another important agenda item that was addressed is what we call the sustainable air fuels. On the energetic transition and looking for objectives of the NetZero in 2050. Korea also has already a program for the NetZero agenda and the sustainable air fuels is one of the important items on the agenda.

Angola is also engaged in this energetic transition process and we want to be a participant in the process of the sustainable air fuels giving the fact that we are an oil producing country and we are also building three new refineries in Angola that can be part of this strategy.

The third element that was addressed is what we call the UAM – Urban Air Mobility, that is coming in the sense of technological breakthrough of the unmanned operated aircraft, the drones.

Q: Can we go to the moon?

A: Not to the moon yet, but at least having the unmanned operated aircraft that will allow us to move within cities that is the big breakthrough. We had the opportunity to listen to the Hyundai CEO that has a very strong program and career in establishing the right framework to allow the Urban Air Mobility become a very important element and system to support the urban mobility as a whole.

It’s not only terrestrial transport now, we are talking about air transport in the mobility supporting the urban mobility. That’s another very important agenda item that we are also engaging in, and we want to be a strong participant on the agenda. Besides that, we have opportunity to interact with our colleagues here from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

We are planning to make a visit, a specific visit, to address some of the important agreements, bilateral agreements that we need to sign. One is the air service agreement, bilateral air service agreement and we also want to extend an agreement to the maritime side and ports.

So we will engage to see what is the appropriate time to come back, specifically to address those issues on the bilateral air service agreement, on the maritime side agreement and the potential for other opportunities as well with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

During the visit as well we had the opportunity to talk with the entities related to the Korean Civil Aviation System from Korean Air, KAC – Korean Airport Corporation, and the Incheon management team, very important airport, one of the biggest airports in the world and the best, not only the biggest but the best. And as we are finalizing the construction of a new airport in Luanda, we engage with those entities also seeking to understand their appetite to engage with us.

Q: So, you invite Korean companies to take part in?

A: Yes.

Q: Any Korean companies have already submitted application to enter that project?
A: That was the purpose of our discussion with these two companies because the airport construction is in the final stage and we are hoping to inaugurate the airport in November 2023, but at the same time we are launching the international tender process for the concession of the airport and one of the discussions we had with these companies is exactly their appetite to bid for the concession of the airport and also bid for the privatization of our airport management company - SCA.

So things are looking good, and very happy of these discussions and all the engagement that we had. We have a reasonably big community of Koreans in Angola.

Q: How many Korean people are in Angola?

A: I would say, around one thousand, something like that. And I think we can extend our relationship as soon as we have connectivity between Korea and Angola or Seoul and Luanda, let’s see if we can get to that stage.

Q: Do you have any free trade deal signed between Angola and Korea?
A: Well, Angola and Korea are in the process of negotiating the signature of a Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Foreign Investments Agreement. This is because the focus of Angola and the presidency of President João Lourenço is exactly to facilitate trade, that’s the main objective.

We are looking to facilitate trade and protect bilateral investment. Those are the agreements that the Angolan Government is currently signing across the world. So, if there are any non-tariff barriers between Angola and Korea, will have to be dismissed.

Q: What are the main tourist attractions in your country?

A: Wow. Angola is a blessed country, I would say.

We have all the potential for the various types of tourism, or I would say or attractions from the cultural side, from the landscape and sightseeing, animals, reserves, the sun and beach, also we have 1600 km of coastline.

We have exclusive areas for sun babying and promoting that type of investment. On the cultural side, I don’t know if you are aware, Angola has one city that was declared, by UNESCO, World Heritage City which is M´banza Congo in the province of Zaire. And we are building a new airport in M´banza Congo, exactly to allow the international connectivity to M´banza Congo to promote cultural tourism in that area.

There are several opportunities on the tourism side. It’s a very important sector for the transport sector because if we need to grow traffic in Angola we need those sectors to be in a very fast moving pace. We are counting on them because most of the investments that we are making are exactly to facilitate all the other counterparts and tourism is a very important pillar even for the diversification of our economy. The potential to grow is enormous.

What we normally say is that at least in the civil aviation side we have no option other than growing because if we put these subsectors in place, the aviation system of Angola will grow.

Thank you very much, we look forward to engaging with Korea we have already in this side of the world, with Japan important projects ongoing, the infrastructure development of Angola is a critical objective of this government.

Korea can play an important role in supporting Angola in reducing the infrastructural gap and allowing promoting the diversification as well. So, we are very much with high expectations and hopes that we can engage further with Korea and take all these opportunities to fruition.