ngola
was one of the three principal recipients of foreign direct investment
in Africa last year. Among the world’s least-developed countries,
it topped the list of FDI recipients in 1999, taking in a massive $1.8
billion.
About 90 per cent of the FDI to Angola is absorbed by the oil sector,
into which the multinationals have poured billions of dollars. Principal
investors are the US and France.
Outside the petroleum and diamond sectors, investment has inevitably
been deterred by the civil conflict. Portugal, the former colonial power,
was the leading investor outside these sectors last year, reaching
$123 million. In the past five years, Portuguese investment in Angola
has seen rapid growth, estimated to have increased 90 per cent year-on-year.
|
||
 |
Sectors
offering opportunities for investment include mining (not just diamonds),
agriculture and fishing, food processing, soft drinks production and
brewing. Coca-Cola invested $36 million in a new bottling plant last
year.
According to Joao de Miranda,
minister for foreign affairs, the country’s western regions offer
particularly valuable opportunities. “The majority of the precious
resources lie in the west, where war has never been a problem,”
he says. “There is still room for our partners to invest with high
safety.”
Critics contend that much of the billions of dollars in development
aid that has already poured into Africa has gone into useless projects
or been siphoned off by corrupt officials. In some cases, critics say,
donor cash has enabled governments to abdicate social responsibility.
Delegates
at the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which
Angola is a member, were told at its annual summit in August that the
region’s economic growth was too low to have any impact on poverty.
Although the economy grew by 3.4 per cent last year, that is too low
compared with the World Bank’s minimum of six per cent.
[email protected]