PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Render of the 4 star Spa Por do Sol Hotel for Huambo (Source).

POLITICS

Angola will hold general elections on August 31, only the third since independence in 1975. The head of the winning party will become president according to law (News24).

Angola’s Supreme Court has blocked the appointment of the election commission head, seen as a close ally of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Opposition parties, including former rebel group Unita, had challenged Susana Ingles’s position. She is a lawyer, whereas the head of the election body should be a judge (BBC).

Angola’s electoral commission later appointed Eldetrudes Costa as interim president (Bloomberg).

In the past week, preparations for the electoral process have taken some remarkable twists and turns. They might signal either a new chapter in the democratization process or the postponement of the elections or even a more complex manouevring for electoral fraud (AllAfrica).

A group of rappers in Angola known for their anti-government lyrics have been beaten up in Luanda. About 15 masked men burst into the house where they were meeting (BBC).

INTERNATIONAL

Brazil is establishing its place as a “major political and economic actor,” in Angola, Mozambique and in other African countries, with its companies investing in the same sectors as important Chinese and Indian investors, according to researcher Loro Horta (Macauhub).

ECONOMY

Fitch Ratings has revised the Outlooks on Angola’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) to Positive from Stable and affirmed both ratings at ‘BB-’. Fitch has simultaneously affirmed Angola’s Short-term IDR at ‘B’ and Country Ceiling at ‘BB-’. “The revision of Angola’s Outlook to Positive reflects the country’s prudent economic policies which have helped re-build and strengthen public and external balance sheets (Reuters).

BUSINESS

Angola remains a “key building block” in Namibia Breweries’ export strategy despite challenges like lengthy cross-border processes, import duties and price competitiveness (AllAfrica).

The executive commission of Sonangol Investimentos Industriais (SIIND) plans by the end of this year to have 26 industrial units operating in the Luanda-Bengo Special economic Zone (ZEE), the company’s business director, Gaspar Neto said (Macauhub).

The Made in Angola programme aims to distinguish national products involving producers, consumers and workers, the Minister of State and Economic Coordination said. Manuel Domingos Vicente explained that the Made in Angola logo would be affixed to packages of commercial products and used in companies’ publicity with the goal of developing a brand image for Angolan products and services, making them identifiable for national and international consumers (Macauhub).

MINING

Businessman Arkady Gaydamak has begun a court bid to reclaim millions in unpaid commissions and dividends from “king of diamonds” Lev Leviev, in a battle over Angolan assets that could lay bare the workings of the country’s often opaque gem trade. The tussle, which has drawn in Russian rabbis and one of Angola’s top military officials, is the latest in a spate of high-profile disputes brought to London by billionaires from Russia and the former Soviet Republics (Reuters).

Angolan security forces have raped women and girls from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo who came to Angola’s diamond fields in search of work, Human Rights Watch charged (News24).

OIL & GAS

About ten cargoes of July loading Angolan crude have traded, traders said. At least six cargoes were sold to Unipec, the largest corporate buyer of Angola crude, and some to CNOOC (Reuters).

POWER

Regular power cuts in Luanda and across Angola will continue until 2016, Angola’s Energy and Water Minister, João Baptista Borges said (Macauhub).

SOCIAL

The Angolan journalist, Isabel João, with the weekly “Novo Jornal”, is part of the 34 finalists of CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2012 contest, as announced this week by an independent jury panel (ANGOP).

POLITICS

More than 40 Angolan opposition supporters were killed and six injured in a road crash as they returned from a party meeting, police said. The Unita opposition said the group was returning from a meeting in the community 380km southeast of the capital Luanda (News24).

Angolan soldiers could stay in Guinea-Bissau if the international community requested it through a United Nations resolution, minister for economic affairs Manuel Vicente said (News24).

ECONOMY

A staff team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by Mr. Mauro Mecagni, visited Luanda from May 2 to May 17, 2012 to conduct the 2012 Article IV Consultation and First Post-Program Monitoring Mission. During its stay, the mission met with Ministers and other senior government officials[1], and representatives of the banking, business, diplomatic, and academic communities. The mission also had the opportunity to visit the provinces of Kwanza Norte and Malange. At the end of the mission, Mr. Mecagni issued the following statement about the Angolan economy.

Angola’s Gross Domestic product (GDP) is expected to post growth this year of between 8 and 10 percent, the minister for Planning, Ana Dias Lourenço said, adding that it would exceed the 3.12 percent growth rate posted in 2011 by a wide margin (Macauhub).

Portugal and China are boosting their position as Angola’s main trading partners, as a time of growing economic activity in Angola and of public and trade surpluses, according to Portugal’s BPI bank (Macauhub).

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BUSINESS

Zon Multimedia SGPS SA, Portugal’s biggest cable-television provider, predicted that revenue from its Angolan unit will offset declining sales at home amid a weak economy. “We are already seeing this,” Chief Financial Officer Jose Pedro Pereira da Costa said in a phone interview. “Angola will predictably have better earnings and domestically we shouldn’t expect anything much different than last year.” Total revenue, which didn’t include Angola, dropped 2 percent in 2011 (Bloomberg).

The Argentinean government plans this year to open up a credit line of US$100 million to support development in Angola, particularly in the agricultural and industrial sectors, the Argentinean ambassador in Angola said (Macauhub).

The logo for the “Made in Angola” programme will be presented Friday in Luanda by the Angolan Economy Ministry, with the aim of developing an image and brand for Angolan products and services. The logo will be placed on packaging of consumer goods and on the external communications of companies that join the programme (Macauhub).

BANKING & FINANCE

A stern test and a golden opportunity, Angola’s new foreign exchange law for the oil sector will flood billions of dollars into the country’s banking system and pose tough questions about transparency and technical readiness. Riding on the coattails of an oil boom Angola’s banks have posted strong growth in the last decade, attracted foreign players and become the subject of takeover talk (Reuters).

Angola’s government has provided information on $27.2 billion of an accounting discrepancy in public funds linked to Sonangol but has yet to account for another $4.2 billion, the IMF said (Reuters).

OIL & GAS

Angolan crude oil differentials were expected to strengthen after the announcement of a smaller-than-expected loading programme for July, traders said. Angola will export around 1.56 million barrels per day (bpd)of crude oil in July in 51 cargoes, down from 1.69 million bpd in June and nearly 1.80 million bpd in April (Reuters).

Sembcorp Marine Ltd, the world’s second largest oil rig builder, said it has secured three contracts worth a total of S$130 million ($102.6 million). One of the contracts was awarded by Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção S.A. for the repair and upgrading of a vessel (Reuters).

The European Commission approved a proposal from Britain’s BP, U.S. oil major Chevron, Italy’s Eni and France’s Total and Angola’s Sonangol to take control of Angola LNG joint venture to develop liquefied natural gas projects (Reuters).

India’s largest refiner, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), has bought around 1 million barrels of Angolan Kissanje crude oil via tender from Sonangol, traders said (Reuters).

POWER

The first Angolan factory for solar power equipment – an investment of US$6 million – has been opened in Viana on the outskirts of Luanda, by Angolan business group Opala. According to the managing director of Green Power, Carlos Igrejas, the factory will have an initial workforce of 30 people and by the end of the year is expected to post turnover of US$11.5 million (Macauhub).

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Render of the four residential Zenith Towers, currently under construction in Luanda (Skyscrapercity).

POLITICS

Angola’s ruling party is gripped by a struggle over who should succeed President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, amid public rallies calling for the leader of Africa’s second-largest crude producer to quit after 32 years in power. As the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola gears up for an election due by Sept. 5, dos Santos wants Manuel Domingos Vicente, the former head of state oil company Sonangol EP, to be his deputy. Other party leaders favor the political experience of Vice President Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos (Bloomberg).

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BUSINESS

Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the country’s president, bought a further 5 percent of Portugal’s leading pay-TV and Internet provider Zon Multimedia from Spain’s Telefonica, making her its largest shareholder, Zon said (Reuters).

Zon Multimedia SGPS SA also predicted that revenue from its Angolan unit will offset declining sales at home amid a weak economy (Bloomberg).

AVIATION

The Angola Airlines (TAAG) will enlarge its fleet of planes in 2016 with the purchase of three more equipment of the type BOEING 777-300-ER, as part of its development strategy (Angop).

BANKING

The colonial ties that bound Portuguese banks such as Banco Espirito Santo SA to Africa are being loosened by the European debt crisis. Lenders from Lisbon are retreating from funding projects in Africa as they ride out debt woes at home and prepare for more stringent global capital rules. Citigroup Inc., Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc are filling the gap, while Johannesburg-based Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Nedbank Group Ltd. are boosting mining and oil loans to benefit from an investment surge in the world’s poorest continent (Bloomberg).

Prestação de Serviços, a stakeholding company owned by Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, said it had acquired 9.436 percent of Portuguese bank Banco BPI, increasing its total stake to 19.43 percent (Macauhub).

INTERNET

Almost 400.000 people in Angola are now using Facebook, up by over 50.000 or 15% from last year. Facebook penetration in Angola now stands at 3% (SocialBakers).

But Luanda just made it into the Top 5 African Cities on Facebook with 158 000 users (News24).

OIL & GAS

Aker Solutions has been awarded a contract by Total E&P Angola, to deliver seven new subsea tree systems to the Dalia field located offshore Angola. Contract value is approximately NOK 470 million (Reuters).

Angola’s Lobito oil refinery, which is yet to be completed, will produce as much as 120,000 barrels a day during its first stage of operation, Agencia Angola Press reported, citing Oil Minister Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos (Bloomberg).

Angola was the second-largest supplier of oil to China in the first quarter of 2012, after Saudi Arabia. Between January and March of this year China imported 9.5 million tons of crude oil from Angola, which was 4.7 million tons less than it imported from Saudi Arabia, and 2.4 million tons more than it imported from Russia, its third-biggest suppler (Macauhub).

Angola has urged Zambia to take advantage of the short distance and buy oil from that country instead of getting the commodity from the Middle East (UKZambians).

POWER

Brazilian company Eletrobras is studying the possibility of building a hydroelectric plant in Angola over the next few years, said the chairman of the Brazilian state power company, José Carvalho Neto (Macauhub).

TELECOMS

Angolan mobile phone operator Movicel plans soon to launch a fourth generation (4G) mobile network in partnership with Chinese telecommunications equipment company ZTE, the Angolan company’s chief operating office, António Francisco said (Macauhub).

Telecom Namibia has over the past seven years lost more than N$100 million through their investment in Mundo Startel (MST) in Angola, of which it holds 44 per cent shares (The Namibian).

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Render of the twin Loanda Towers, currently under construction in Luanda (Skyscrapercity).

INTERNATIONAL

A new credit line worth US$2 billion from the Brazilian government for Angola was officially set up Friday in Brasilia following the official signing of the document, the Brazilian press reported (Macauhub).

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ECONOMY

Angola’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 10.25 percent for the third straight month as it strives to meet its year-end inflation target of 10 percent (Reuters).

Construction projects in Angola are increasing to the benefit of large companies such as China’s SinoHydro, due to a rise in the country’s oil revenues, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) (Macauhub).

SPLIT SECOND POLLS

MINING

OAO Alrosa’s Catoca diamond mine in Angola produced about 550,000 carats a month in the first quarter, the Angop news service reported, citing the director of the company’s joint venture in the country (Bloomberg).

An iron ore deposit with estimated reserves of 400 million tons has been found in an area that is part of the Cassinga Norte project, the deputy director of Angolan mining company Sociedade Angolana de Exploração de Recursos Minerais (Aemr) said (Macauhub).

Vale Fértil, Lda, the Angolan subsidiary of Israeli group LR, may invest US$1 billion in a project to mine and process phosphates in the Lucunga basin, in Angola’s Zaire province (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

Angola, Africa’s second-largest oil producer, plans to increase exports of Pazflor crude for June by one cargo from May to seven shipments, the most since the field started production in October, according to a final loading program obtained by Bloomberg.

TELECOMS

A big upgrade in the mobile phone network available to Angolans is taking place. They’re in the process of getting high-speed 4G services – ahead of most of Europe and many parts of the US – thanks to a $100m project underway there. It means customers in Luanda will enjoy faster mobile download speeds than their counterparts in London (BBC).

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Render of the triple tower Yesus complex for Luanda (Source).

POLITICS

After being a U.S.-backed rebellion for decades in Angola, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA, is now struggling as a political entity.  Its leader, Isaias Samakuva, is threatening massive street protests if there are no guarantees for free and fair elections expected later this year (VOA).

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INTERNATIONAL

The European Union and Angola are due to sign, in Brussels, a new agreement called the EU-Angola Joint Way Forward which is intended to, “launch a permanent process of dialogue and cooperation between the two regions,” the President of the European Commission said (Macauhub).

Chinese State Councilor Meng Jianzhu has urged the Angolan Interior Department to protect the safety and lawful rights of China’s citizens in Angola, as crimes by armed gangs against Chinese working in the African country have been on the rise (Capital News).

ECONOMY

Angola’s rapid rebuilding after a devastating civil war will attract foreign companies to invest in its ample natural resources and help diversify the economy away from oil, the new head of the country’s investment agency said. Maria de Luisa Abrantes, President of the Angolan Agency for Private Investment (ANIP), also told Reuters that a new investment law passed in 2011 is helping the government approve foreign investment projects more rapidly and monitor their effectiveness more closely.

BANKING & FINANCE

Angolan bank Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI) now owns 72 percent of insurance company Nossa, Nova Sociedade de Seguros de Angola, after making a deal with Portuguese insurance company Real Seguros, which owned a 55.33 percent stake in Nossa, BAI said (Macauhub).

MINING

The Angolan mining sector grew 11.8 per cent from 2008 to 2011 (Angop).

OIL & GAS

Angola LNG is to start regular exports of liquefied natural gas in late June after shipping tests next month and will target non-U.S. buyers in Europe and Asia where prices are higher, oil minister Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos said (Reuters).

Angola will reduce daily crude exports for June to a 10-month low, according to a final loading program obtained by Bloomberg.

INTERNATIONAL

Confusion persists over who masterminded the Guinea-Bissau coup. A shadowy self-styled “Military Command” said it acted to head off what it alleged was a secret pact between Gomes Junior and Angola to “annihilate Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces”. Angola had been providing military trainers and advisers to the smaller state in a military cooperation mission. But it announced earlier this month that it was ending the mission (Reuters).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

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BUSINESS

Sociedade de Construções Soares da Costa has won the contract to design and build housing for Angola LNG personnel (1^stphase) in Soyo. The group adds that its affiliate will carry out the project in consortium with the company MSF (Moniz da Maia Serra e Fortunato) and that each company will have a 50% stake (Macauhub).

BANKING & FINANCE

Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa’s largest lender, won’t rule out acquisitions in Angola as it seeks to become one of the top five banks in the oil-producing country, the head of the bank’s Angolan unit said (Bloomberg).

The Angolan insurance market has maintained sustained and accelerated growth since it was liberalised in 2000, indicates a study by the KPMG consultancy and auditing firm released in Luanda (Macauhub).

HOTELS

At least 84 new hotels were built in Angola between 2008 and 2012 in Angola, totallin 4,780 modern rooms. Until 2008 the country had only 61 hotels, with 2,822 rooms. Angola currently has 145 hotels with 7,602 rooms (ABN).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

LOGISTICS

The Angolan government is studying the establishment of a national shipping company, given the lack of a single national fleet operator dedicated to seagoing traffic, the head of the Merchant Marine Department said (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

French oil major Total will cut oil supplies at a giant deep oil platform off the coast of Angola for planned works in June, trade sources said. Girassol, which means sunflower in Portuguese, is one of OPEC member Angola’s largest fields and can pump up to 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) (Reuters).

Cobalt International Energy Inc said it “strongly refuted” allegations of wrongdoing after a newspaper reported that three Angolan officials held concealed shares in an oil venture linked to the company (Reuters).

The Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) and an international corporation of Angola signed a US$2.5 billion memorandum of understanding (MoU) which will see the construction of a petroleum pipeline to run from Lobito in Angola to Lusaka (AllAfrica).

Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO) said first production at Block 31 offshore Angola is expected in the second half of this year (Fox Business).

POLITICS

Angola is ending its military mission to help modernise the army in Guinea Bissau as a result of requests from unnamed “sectors” in the country, Portuguese news agency Lusa quoted Angola’s foreign minister as saying (Reuters Africa).

Angolan rebels have offered a ceasefire and called for peace talks that could herald an end to decades of conflict in the country. The truce offer comes amid unconfirmed reports that Angola’s army has increased its military presence in Cabinda enclave in advance of the elections (Financial Times).

INTERNATIONAL

Angola is negotiating a new credit line with Brazil, the funds of which will be used for infrastructure, energy, and industrial sector projects the Angolan ambassador to Brazil, Nelson Cosme said in Brasilia (Macauhub).

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BUSINESS

L’Oreal SA expects the middle class in Angola and Cameroon to expand sufficiently over the next three years to warrant setting up operations there (Bloomberg).

The hospital business in Portugal is one of the targets of Angolan oil company Sonangol, at a time when the financial crisis in Portugal is attracting Angolan, Brazilian and Chinese investors to study acquisitions and privatisations, according to the Africa Monitor newsletter (Macauhub).

AVIATION

Sonair, airline unit of Sonangol EP, will acquire a “minimum” of 51 percent of STP Air of the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, Agencia Angola Press reported, citing Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada of Sao Tome and Principe (Bloomberg).

BANKING

Standard Bank Group plans to as much as quadruple its branch network in Angola by the end of this year, as it targets explosive growth in the oil-rich nation, the head of its Angolan unit said. Pedro Pinto Coelho also told Reuters in an interview that Africa’s biggest bank will not rule out an acquisition in Angola, where it is aiming for up to 70 branches in as little as three years (News24).

Angolan bank Banco BIC, which recently bought nationalised Portuguese bank Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) via BIC Portugal, plans to put forward a proposal to the Portuguese government to acquire BPN Brasil, said shareholder and chairman of the bank, Fernando Teles (Macauhub).

CULTURE

She is bold, she is bright, she is beautiful and she is taking Angola by storm. Not bad for a transsexual in a Catholic African country where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by hard labour. Born in Luanda as Teca Miguel Garcia, singer and dancer Titica adopted her female persona four years ago following a breast enhancement operation in Brazil (BBC).

POLITICS

Now vying to be “Africa’s Dubai”, Luanda and its building boom reflect the progress made since rebel group UNITA, decapitated by the death in battle of its leader Jonas Savimbi, signed an April 4, 2002 peace accord with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his victorious ruling MPLA party. But many citizens say however they feel left out of the post-war economic boom that has elevated Angola to Africa’s No. 2 oil producer behind Nigeria. They accuse Dos Santos’ government of leaving the poor behind while a ruling elite reaps the spoils of peace (Reuters).

There may be much that is shiny and new in Angola, but 10 years after the end of the war many ghosts remain, as Louise Redvers reports for BBC Focus on Africa magazine. It is a milestone that at one time few would have thought possible. On 4 April, Angola marks a decade since the end of the 27-year civil war which devastated the country, claiming countless lives and displacing millions. How times have changed. Today Angola can now boast of a booming economy – forecast to grow 12% this year – and a growing regional and international diplomatic profile (BBC).

With his thin-rimmed spectacles and philosophy degree, MCK belies the image of a streetwise rapper, but his latest album bears a message that is authentically tough. Released in January, “Proibido Ouvir Isto” (Forbidden to Hear This), assails a host of national ills, from the corruption of Angola’s elite to the squalor of its fetid musseques (slums) (The Economist).

President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos probably won’t lose power in Africa’s second-biggest crude producer, as oil income strengthens his rule, said former Prime Minister Marcolino Moco, a member of the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. “It’s a dictatorship of oil that we have,” Moco told reporters today in Johannesburg, in neighboring South Africa. “The president dominates completely. It’s not a one-party state; it’s a one-person state” (Bloomberg).

Elias Isaac, country director in Angola for the independent Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, Marcolino Moco, a member of Angola’s ruling MPLA who is nonetheless a sharp critic of long-time President Eduardo dos Santos, and  of the opposition Unita party held a news conference in neighbouring South Africa to discuss their concerns about the state of democracy in the southern African nation (News24).

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SPLIT SECOND POLL

ECONOMY

Angola needs to invest US$20 billion in telecommunications, transport, energy, and water over the next decade in order to catch up with the level of infrastructure in other developing countries, according to a comparative study from the World Bank published in Washington (Macauhub).

Angola’s foreign-currency reserves dropped to $26.6 billion in February from $27.1 billion in the previous month, the Luanda-based central bank said (Bloomberg).

Angolans can now build infrastructure and farm crops more safely, as more than 870 million square metres of land have been cleared of mines since 2008, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The UNDP has contributed to local efforts by training more than 1,000 demining specialists at the National Demining Institute in recent years (Defence Web).

AVIATION

Boeing Co said Angola carrier TAAG Linhas Aereas de Angola has ordered three 777-300ER airplanes, a deal worth $895 million at list prices (Reuters).

At least eight airports will be well equipped and modernized in Angola this year.  The director of Infrastructure of the National Company for the Exploration of Airports and Air Navigation (ENANA), Nataniel Domingos, stated that the modernization of each facility includes the construction or repair of aircraft movement areas, including runways and parking (Prensa Latina).

OIL & GAS

Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol EP wants to explore for oil in Cuba through a joint venture with Cobalt International Energy Inc. (CIE). Manuel Vicente, Angola’s minister for economic coordination and former Sonangol chairman, traveled to the Caribbean island last week to discuss Sonangol’s access to the country’s oil sector (Bloomberg).

A large shipyard intended to provide support to oil companies operating in the seas off Angola is currently under construction in the Porto Amboim. Called Porto Amboim Estaleiros Navais (Paenal) the shipyard started out in 2007 as a subsidiary of state group Sonangol, with a 40 percent stake, and its foreign partners are Singapore’s SBW Shipyard, and its South Korean counterpart Daewoo Shipyards, each with a 30 percent stake (Macauhub).

POLITICS

An Angolan human rights group said it is launching a campaign for the right to protest amid a state crackdown on demonstrations against long-ruling President Jose Eduardo dos Santos (News24).

INTERNATIONAL

The International Monetary Fund approved the release of a final loan disbursement to Angola under the country’s $1.4 billion loan agreement made in 2009. The IMF said it would immediately disburse $132.9 million to Angolan authorities and waived performance targets linked to international reserves and central bank credit (Reuters).

The International Monetary Fund should withhold a final loan payment of $130 million to Angola because of a “discrepancy” in income from oil sales, Human Rights Watch said (Bloomberg).

Angola’s $500m plan to build a bauxite mine and deepwater port in Guinea-Bissau has stalled, with almost no work done since the project was officially inaugurated in July last year. The project, first signalled by Angola in 2008 after it won rights to a mining concession in the southeastern Boe region, would be the single biggest foreign investment in Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished country plagued by turmoil since independence and whose main export is cashew nuts (BusinessDay).

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DEFENSE & SECURITY

Many white South Africans conscripted to fight for the apartheid military in Angola still struggle to swallow the bitter pill that their battle landed on the wrong side of history. Known here as the Border War, apartheid South Africa sent troops to support Angola’s Unita rebels, backed by the US against the then-Marxist MPLA government and its Cuban allies (News24).

Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer said it booked $180 million in orders for its Super Tucano light attack fighters for border monitoring and counter-insurgency missions in Burkina Faso, Angola and Mauritania. The Angola Air Force has ordered six Super Tucanos, the first three of which will be delivered this year (Reuters).

ECONOMY

Angola’s central bank has left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 10.25 percent for the second straight month, the bank said after a meeting of its monetary policy committee (Reuters).

Next month Angola commemorates the 10th anniversary of the end of its three-decade civil war. The country has come a long way since 2002, when the death of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi finally silenced the guns that had pounded for so long in a conflict that began as a liberation struggle against the Portuguese and evolved into a proxy African cold war, involving both the ANC and the South African Defence Force. Thanks to oil, which accounts for about 90% of Angola’s exports, the economy has grown at a stellar rate, at times outstripping China. This year its gross domestic product is forecast to swell by 12% (Mail & Guardian).

AVIATION

Four private airlines may soon start operating in Angola after completing the process to become an operator with the National Civil Aviation Institute (INAVIC), an official from the civil aviation regulator said. Air Two, Trans-World, Omni Aviation and SJL airlines are now waiting for conclusion of their application process in order to receive official certification (Macauhub).

The Dutch airline company KLM made the inaugural flight between the cities of Luanda and Amsterdam (Netherlands) with an Airbus 330-200, leaving the 4 de Fevereiro International Airport early in the evening (AllAfrica).

BANKING

The Portuguese unit of Angola’s Banco BIC will buy nationalised lender Banco Portugues de Negocios (BPN) after the European Union approved the Portuguese bank’s restructuring, opening the way for completion of the agreed deal (Reuters).

An investment bank owned by Portuguese state banking group Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) and Angola’s Sonangol is due to start operating in Angola the second half of this year, the Portuguese Finance Minister said in Luanda (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

Angola plans to cut daily crude exports by 5 percent in May from next month, according to a final loading program obtained by Bloomberg News. The west African nation would export 55 cargoes amounting to 1.7 million barrels a day, compared with 56 cargoes totaling 1.79 million in April, the final schedules showed.

PORTS & LOGISTICS

The modernisation and enlargement of Lobito Port will be worth 1.2 billion dollars acoording to the port’s CEO, Anapaz de Jesus Neto. The money will be used for the construction of a terminal for unloading minerals cargo. The enlargement of the quay that will enable to receive 12 ships is also part of the work. Currently, Lobito Port receives only eight ships. The investment also comprises the construction of a dry port and other port related services. With this investment it will be possible to handle 11 million tonnes of cargo per year (ABN/Angop).

TELECOMS

Brazilian company Telebras and Angola Cables signed an agreement to lay an undersea cable between the Brazilian city of Fortaleza and the Angolan capital, Luanda, which may start operating in the first half of 2014 (Macauhub).

POLITICS

An Angolan weekly whose computers were seized by police after it lampooned President Jose Eduardo dos Santos will appear this weekend and carry on fighting for democracy, its chief said. “The current government in Angola wants to muzzle our weekly by seizing our equipment,” Fernando Puati, the managing director of Folha 8, told AFP in a telephone interview.

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ECONOMY

Angola will start taxing informal traders this year to boost income from outside the oil industry, Jornal de Angola reported, citing Finance Minister Carlos Alberto Lopes. A “greater percentage” of the economy in sub-SaharanAfrica’s second-biggest oil producer is informal and traders must formalize some of their activities to enable the government to collect taxes, the Luanda-based newspaper said (Bloomberg).

OIL & GAS

Angola will export 57 crude cargoes in May, including the newest Pazflor grade, according to loading programs obtained by Bloomberg News. The west African nation plans to export one more consignment in May than the 56 scheduled to load in April. Loading programs are monthly plans of crude shipments compiled by field operators to allow buyers and sellers to plan their supply and trading activities.

SPLIT SECOND POLLS

POLITICS

A group of youth student protesters joined by a few opposition party members gathered on the streets on the March 10 to express their dissatisfaction with the electoral process and the dictatorial ruling of president Jose Eduardo dos Santos. The protestors were brutalised by a well-organized group of militias (News24).

Angolan police have seized the computers of the weekly Folha 8, after the paper published a photo montage lampooning President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the Committee to Protect Journalists said (IOL).

Angolan anti-graft campaigner Rafael Marques testified to prosecutors investigating his claims that seven generals committed crimes against humanity in the country’s diamond fields. Marques, also an author, has accused the generals of being behind torture and killings committed by soldiers as well as by private security forces hired to protect diamond concessions in the northeastern Lundas region. He has singled out the Cuango Mining Society, a consortium that includes a company called Lumanhe, in which he says the generals have a stake (AFP).

Angola’s minister of Justice, Guilhermina Prata, said that the adoption of the Law on Domestic Violence in Angola results from the commitment shown by political power to tackle the social issues, especially involving women and children (AllAfrica).

ECONOMY

President José Eduardo dos Santos, signed four Presidential Decrees ensuring the  support for entrepreneurs and creating  conditions for a greater participation of the private sector in the national economy. A note issued by the Civil Office of the President of the Republic, mentions the Presidential Decrees approving Law No. 30/11 of September 13 on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME’s), the Programme of Support for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, the Programme of Support to Small Business (PROAPEN) and the establishing of the Single Counter of Entrepreneurs (BUE) (AW).

Angola plans to invest $1,8bn to help create small and medium-sized businesses, develop existing ones and reduce the economy’s dependence on the state, the state-owned daily newspaper Jornal de Angola said (BusinessDay).

INTERNATIONAL

At a ceremony in Namibia government ministers from Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe put their official seal on a cross-border treaty set to combine 36 nature preserves and surrounding areas (Washington Post).

Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Chicoti’s visit to London in late February allowed the minister to present a vivid picture of how his government, ten years after the civil war, likes to see its place in the world. His address pointed to an Angola that is ready to use its financial and military might to assert itself beyond its own borders (AllAfrica).

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BUSINESS

106-year-old Sporting Lisbon soccer club is looking for an investor to ensure it has enough funds to make it through this season and next, said Godinho Lopes, who traveled to the oil-producing former Portuguese colony of Angola this year (Bloomberg).

SAP AG, the biggest maker of enterprise-management software, will open an office in Angola this year as it expands its network in Africa, where it plans to double sales of its small-business offering (Bloomberg).

The Entrepreneurial Support Centre of the Angola’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CAE), Unicarga and Prodiaman Services have been awarded the Gold Quality Prize of the  international organisation Initiative Directions in Geneva, in recognition of their services (ANGOP).

BANKING

Finibanco Angola, a Portuguese and Angolan owned bank opened its first branch in the city of Lobito, in Benguela province (AW).

OIL

Sonangol is in talks to buy a direct stake in Portugal’s Galp Energia , which holds interests in four oil blocks and a gas export project offshore Angola. Sonangol is negotiating to buy half of Italian group Eni’s 33.3 percent stake in Galp, board member Sebastiao Gaspar Martins told Reuters.

Offshore vessels provider Tidewater Inc said Sonatide, its partnership with Angola’s state oil company, will not take up new charters or extend existing ones in the country until the two parties resolve ongoing joint venture talks. Tidewater said its venture agreement with Angola’s Sonangol expires on March 31, but Sonangol has put forth additional and modified terms to the partnership contract (Reuters).

Angola may hold a new oil-bidding round next year, a senior official at state-owned oil company Sonangol EP said. “We haven’t decided yet on the areas on offer,” Gaspar Martins, an executive board member at Sonangol, told reporters at a conference in Kuwait. Some may be onshore, some deepwater, he said (Bloomberg).

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Render of the Pestana Luanda Bay Hotel and Resort, the first project of the Pestana Group (link).

POLITICS

The president of the European Commission (EC), José Manuel Durão Barroso, is due to travel to Angola next April to study along with the government new cooperation measures in the areas of the economy, trade, industry, energy, transport, science and technology, according to a report in Angolan newspaper Jornal de Angola (Macauhub).

Angola’s attorney general has summoned witnesses to testify in a case that implicates some of the top figures in the country’s military and security establishment in acts of torture and murder in the diamond fields of north-eastern Angola (AllAfrica).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

ECONOMY

Angola’s exports reached USD 60.9 billion, while the imports stood at around USD 21.14 billion in 2011, the chairperson of the Board of Directors of the National Private Investment (ANIP), Maria Luisa Abrantes, said (Angop).

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ENERGY

Angola’s power production and distribution capacity is set to increase over the next four years thanks to an investment of US$16.5 billion, which will be in line with a rise in industrial and residential demand. The investment was the first big announcement by the new Water and Energy Minister, João Baptista Borges, who replaced Emanuela Vieira Lopes, and is expected to increase Angola’s power capacity by 12 percent, according to the latest report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

Eni SpA is discussing the sale of a portion of its 33 percent stake in Portuguese oil producer Galp Energia SA to Angola’s Sonangol EP. Eni won’t sell Angola’s state oil company all its holding, valued at 3.7 billion euros ($4.8 billion) at today’s price, because the Portuguese government doesn’t want the African country to have too much control. The remaining holding may be sold to financial investors (Bloomberg).

Sonangol’s net profit in 2011 rose to US$3.313 billion according to preliminary estimates, the chairman of the board of the Angolan oil company, Francisco Lemos de Faria said (Macauhub).

TOURISM

The March issue of Up, TAP Portugal’s in-flight magazine is devoted to Angola with a collection of features spanning two dozen pages.

SOCIAL

Orlando Pirates were amongst the first people to arrive at the scene of a horrific car accident in Angola as the team were heading to the airport. The Buccaneers were on the team bus heading back from their failed CAF Champions League encounter against Recreativo do Lobolo when they came across a family of five who had rolled their car on the way to Luanda (News 24).

Angolan Mass Media minister Carolina Cerqueira appealed to the Angolan journalists for greater responsibility in their work. Journalists were told to convey the massages about construction of infrastructures, trust and hope of the Angolan people, dynamism and commitment of youth, determination and courage shown by women, especially taking abroad the images of a people determined to defend the achievements and faithful to the principles leading the country at the concert of nations (Allafrica).

POLITICS

The Angolan government plans to create 8.2 million jobs by 2025 in a document called “Angola 2025 – a country of the future”, Angop reported. Other targets are reducing poverty by 75 percent, increase per capita gross domestic product (GDP) nine or ten times and reduce average inflation to one digit. Other aims of “Angola 2025″ are to ensure national cohesion, promote peace and tranquillity, equal and sustainable social development, ensure fair distribution of income, macro-economic stability and harmonious development of the country’s regions (Angola Business News).

UN CHIEF

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the government of Angola to do more to reduce the large gap between the country’s wealthy and poor, a move he said would increase stability and unity in the sub-Saharan African nation. Angola is Africa’s second-largest oil producer after Nigeria, but an estimated two-thirds of its population of 18 million people live on less than $2 per day (News24). UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was also concerned by the treatment of illegal migrants on the border of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where uniformed men have raped displaced women (News24). UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also asked Angola to provide helicopters for peacekeeping missions in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan (News24).

ECONOMY

Nearly 40 percent of Angolan oil is exported to China, representing 16 percent of Chinese imports of hydrocarbon, ANGOP reported. From 2009 the African country became one of the most important sources of oil to China and it is the largest commercial partner in Africa. Angolan exports to China stood at over USD 20 billion (14.8 billion euros) in 2011 and are expected to increase in 2012 (Angola Business News).

Some 100 new business projects are expected to settle in the Catumbela Industrial Development Hub (PDIC) in Lobito, Angola’s Benguela province, hub chairman Samuel Orlando do Amaral said (China Daily).

Angola’s central bank left its the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 10.25 percent (Reuters).

BUSINESS

Angolan company Filmdrehtsich will pay 3.78 million euros to buy a 96.31 percent stake owned by the Portuguese state in cinema company Tobis Portuguesa, Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Negócios reported (A Semana).

AGRI ETC

Angolan minister of Economy Abraão Gourgel said that the country might start exporting bananas within the next two years, based on the growth recorded in its production, ANGOP reproted. According to Mr Gourgel, conditions have been created to ensure a continued increase of quality, through a planting system and better technical assistance (Angola Business News).

AVIATION

TAAG appears to be a reflection of Angolan expansion. As the national economy grows and reaches out to the world, TAAG has expanded its flight destinations while China, Brazil and Dubai have become natural additions in recent years. The airline has increased its list of European destinations after obtaining permission to fly to airspace in the continent in 2010. Read the interview with Rui Carreira of TAAG (China Daily).

BANKING

With over $200 billion in total assets and a portfolio that spans across the continent, Standard Bank is the biggest bank in Africa and the largest to enter the Angolan market. Read the interview with Pedro Coelho, CEO of Standard Bank Angola (China Daily).

OIL & GAS

Angolan state oil firm Sonangol posted a 32 percent rise in net profit in 2011, as strong revenues on the back of high oil prices more than offset weak output (Reuters).

The start of operations in the Liquefied Natural Gas (Angola LNG) Project set for the first quarter of this year has been postponed until May 2012, Angop reported. A Sonangol spokesman, Mateus de Brito, said the date has been postponed due to pending tests on the project. In 2011, the Oil minister, José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, announced that the project’s schedules and works on the natural gas processing plant were complete by 62 percent. The northern Zaire province-based Angola LNG Project is a partnership of BP Exploration (13,6 percent), Chevron (36,4), ExxonMobil (13,6), Sonangol (22,8) and Total (13,6) (Angola Business News).

POLITICS

Jonas Savimbi, the vicious, charismatic rebel who fought Angola’s socialist government in a 27-year civil war, died 10 years ago, leaving behind a haunting legacy of violence. Savimbi was killed in a firefight with government forces on February 22, 2002, the denouement of a brutal conflict that grew out of Angola’s messy independence from Portugal in 1975 and lasted until the signing of a peace treaty six weeks after his death (AFP).

ECONOMY

Last year, Angola continued to be Portugal’s main trading partner amongst PALOP countries, with over 80 percent of the total exported to Portugal, made up almost exclusively of oil, and rising 109 percent year on year, which was a growth rate five times that of Angolan imports from Portugal, which rose by 22 percent. This difference in the growth rates improves Angola’s balance of trade with Portugal by 14.2 percent although the surplus remains in Portugal’s favour by 1.16 billion euros (Macauhub).

Angola’s central bank sold $350 million at foreign-currency auctions in the week to Feb. 17, Banco Nacional de Angola said. The kwanza sold at an average rate of 95.538 per dollar, little changed from 95.537 a week earlier (Bloomberg).

Angola’s foreign-currency reserves rose to $26.46 billion in January from a revised $25.9 billion in the previous month, a preliminary document from Angola’s central bank showed. Oil exports from Angola, Africa’s biggest producer after Nigeria, account for more than 90 percent of the country’s foreign-currency earnings, according to the World Bank (Bloomberg).

The State secretary for Industry, Kiala Gabriel, said the country has an installed capacity to process 120,000 tonnes of scrap metal per year (ANGOP).

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BUSINESS

Portuguese wine company Sogrape is available for setting up partnerships with similar companies in Angola to produce wine in the country, the chief executive of the Portuguese company, Salvador Guedes said (Macauhub).

AVIATION

State-owned Angola Airlines Company (TAAG) intend to continue to renew its medium course planes, aimed at improving the services provided to passengers. TAAG intends to gradually replace its classic fleet made up by three 737-200 Boeings. Currently, TAAG connects Luanda to the cities of Cabinda, Soyo, Mbanza Kongo, Malanje, Dundo, Saurimo, Luena, Huambo, Kuito, Menongue, Ondjiva, Lubango, Namibe and Catumbela (ANGOP).

OIL & GAS

US authorities have launched an investigation into Cobalt International Energy’s operations in Angola, where the Goldman Sachs-backed group is developing one of the world’s most promising oil frontiers. Houston-based Cobalt said in a regulatory filing that US regulators had issued notice of a formal probe in November following informal discussions about allegations of ties between its local partner in Angola and senior government officials (Financial Times).

TELECOMS

The country’s 18 provinces will be interlinked by optical fibre, meant to expand and improve telephone and internet services, says the minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies, José Rocha de Carvalho (ANGOP).

SOCIAL

The water utility in Angola’s capital vowed to repair a burst water main within days, to end severe shortages that have lasted a week across much of Luanda. Residents have to trek long distances to find water, which is so scarce that prices have doubled this week due to the shortage, jumping from 7 000 to as much as 14 000 kwanzas ($70 to $140) for a cistern full (News24).

Two drinking water abstraction and treatment systems will be built from this year in Luanda, by the Public Water Company of Luanda (EPAL) (ANGOP)

POLITICS

Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos will seek a new term with former state oil company head Manuel Vicente as his vice president in September polls, a source in the ruling MPLA said (News24).

The Angolan government will this year launch the second phase of the privatisation programme which in the last ten years has enabled the sale to private interests of 198 state companies, Economy Minister Abraão Gourgel announced (Macauhub).

The CNN Press Office (London) has answered the concerns raised by Maka Angola on the agreements between the international news network and the Angolan regime, regarding a media campaign to promote a better image of the latter, due to grave concerns of nepotism and corruption (Bizzcommunity).

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ECONOMY

The Angolan Industrial Association (AIA) wants the industrial tax rate to drop to 25 percent, as its president insists that the reduction from 35 percent to 30 percent is not enough (Macauhub).

The number of companies operating in the Luanda/Bengo Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is still far from the desired and announced number and will depend on an increased influx of foreign companies, Economy Minister Abraão Gourgel stated (Macauhub).

AVIATION

TAAG Angola Airlines will this March begin offering a second weekly flight between Luanda and Beijing. TAAG has been using a 254-seat Boeing 777-200 ER on the route since November 2007 and until last January was the only company with a direct flight from Africa to Beijing, serving as a link between the African continent and China (Macauhub).

Angola will this year have a further nine airports operating that have been refurbished and modernised, the chairman of Angola’s national airport management company Enana said (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

Angolan crude exports are scheduled to increase in April, a loading programme showed, leaving them significantly above the 2011 average. Angola will export 1.79 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in April, the schedule showed, up from 1.61 million bpd planned in March. Average export volumes for 2011 stood at 1.63 million bpd, according to Reuters calculations.

Cobalt International Energy Inc said results from tests at a deep sea oil well off the coast of Angola had exceeded expectations and had increased the company’s confidence in its West African pre-salt exploration prospects. Cobalt, whose main stakeholder is Goldman Sachs, said tests at its Cameia-1 well in Block 21 confirmed the presence of a 1,180 foot “gross continuous oil column” (Reuters).

Angola will send an envoy to South Sudan next week to negotiate an oil deal for state-owned oil company Sonangol EP, Novo Jornal reported, citing an unidentified company official (Bloomberg).

After lower-than-expected production levels in 2011, Angola’s oil sector will bounce back in 2012. Companies had failed to meet the forecast of 1.7m barrels per day (bpd), instead producing a more modest 1.5m bpd (The Africa Report).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

SOCIAL

Information will be gathered for Angola’s General Census of Population and Housing in July and August 2013 and should record about 21 million people, the director-general of the National Statistics Institute (INE) stated in Luanda (Macauhub).

POLITICS

“32 anos e muito!”: An Angolan Spring? The impetus of the Arab Spring has moved south with some Angolans demanding a change of leader (Think Africa Press).

According to the 2011 Global Corruption Perceptions Index released in December by Transparency International, an anti-graft watchdog, Angola is at number 168 out of 182 countries (Mail & Guardian).

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CULTURE

Jandira Sassingui “Perola”, born in central Huambo province, was honored as “Diva of Music” in 2009 “Diva of the Moment” and “Diva of the Year” in 2010, at Angola Divas contest, organized by Angolan producer Semba Communication in partnership with the “Glamour e Festa (ANGOP).

ECONOMY

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in Washington it had a proved a five-week extension of its stand-by arrangement with Angola (Macauhub).

Angola’s economic growth will probably accelerate to about 7 percent this year because of higher oil production, according to the head of Angola’s Catholic University macroeconomic-studies department (Bloomberg).

BUSINESS

Portuguese group Sonae has everything prepared to start operating the Continente hypermarket business in Angola and now only requires formalisation of the authorisation received from the Angolan government on 20 December 2011, said the group’s chief executive, Paulo Azevedo (Macauhub).

AGRI ETC

Angola plans to build a third biofuels plant in the country’s southern region. The plant will produce sugar and ethanol from sugar cane, the Luanda-based broadcaster cited Joaquim David, the Minister of Geology, Mines and Industry. as saying (Bloomberg).

BANKING

The first branch of South Africa’s Standard Bank in Angola opened in Talatona, Luanda, with a ceremony attended by a number of officials from banks operating in Angola (Macauhub).

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MINING

Angola, one of Africa’s potential mining giants, is expected within a month to award contracts for a long-awaited comprehensive geological survey of the country, which will map its resources in a move to boost mining investment (Reuters).

Diamond prospecting activities carried out in Angola by South African group De Beers are being “crowned with success,” Angola’s Geology, Mining and Industry Minister said in Cape Town (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

PT Pertamina has withdrawn its bid for a 25 percent stake at Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Angola oil block after the African country offered the stake to the state oil company Sonangol SA, Mochamad Harun, a spokesman at Pertamina said (Bloomberg).

Nigeria and Angola, Africa’s biggest oil producers, have granted stakes in oil fields to companies that may be acting as fronts for government officials, stifling development in both countries, according to anti-corruption group Global Witness (Bloomberg).

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Portuguese construction company Soares da Costa is due to hand over the Sana Luanda Royal Hotel, which will be inaugurated on 4 February (Macauhub).

POLITICS

Angola’s president has moved the head of state oil firm Sonangol into the government to coordinate economic policy, state news agency Angop reported, a move likely to fuel speculation that Manuel Vicente has been selected to succeed Eduardo dos Santos (Reuters).

A fierce political row is brewing in Angola where opposition parties accuse the ruling MPLA of exerting too much influence over the organisation of the country’s upcoming general election (News24).

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DEFENSE & SECURITY

Damen Shipyards Galati is building the Ngola Kiluange, a Fishery Inspection Surveillance Vessel (FISV) 6210, for the Angolan Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries. With another two ships under construction, the Angolan government is set to strengthen its knowledge of and control over its rich fishing grounds (Forbes).

ECONOMY

When you think of the world’s most expensive cities, the dusty Angolan capital of Luanda seems an unlikely contender. Potholed, chaotic and still scarred by decades of civil war, the city has little of the glitz and glamour of Tokyo, New York or Moscow, and an estimated half of Angolans live on less than $2 a day. But despite the obvious poverty and sprawling slums, Luanda still manages to boast some eye-wateringly high prices (BBC).

The Angolan government paid debts in the amount of US$2.653 billion to Angolan and foreign creditors between 2003 and 2010, the Finance Minister, Carlos Lopes said (Macauhub).

BUSINESS

Shareholders in Portuguese-pay TV provider Zon Multimedia have abandoned limits on voting rights, opening the way for investors to increase their stakes and raising the chances of a merger deal. Analysts said the move could open the way for Angolan investor Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s president, to boost her 10 percent holding in Zon (Reuters).

Two American music promoters were detained for fraud in Angola after US rap star Nas failed to pitch up for a New Year’s concert, their business partner’s lawyer said. Patrick Allocco and his son are being held responsible after Nas didn’t perform though he was paid up front, said Joao Barros, who represents their long-time Angolan business partner Henrique Miguel (News24).

BANKING

Portugal’s Competition Authority has approved the acquisition by Angolan bank Banco Internacional de Crédito (BIC) of 100 percent of Portuguese bank Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) (Macauhub).

Angola’s state-controlled oil company Sonangol — the largest single shareholder in Portugal’s Millennium bcp — wants the bank to gain global scale in a restructuring that involves a management shakeup (Reuters).

OIL & GAS

Sonangol Starfish has made its first discovery of traces of oil in the sea, in Brazil’s Campos Basin, in a block that had already been unsuccessfully drilled, the company said in a statement sent to the National Oil Agency (ANP) (Macauhub).

POLITICS

The Parliament of Angola canceled a session that would have sworn in the head of a national elections commission whom opposition parties have rejected (Bloomberg).

Angola’s ruling MPLA party defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year (Reuters).

INTERNATIONAL

The strategic plan to set up the Cross-border Maiombe Forest Conservation Area, between Angola, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo, requires US$40 million in investment, the project’s regional coordinator said (Macauhub).

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ECONOMY

The economy of Angola grew 3.4 percent last year with “prudent” policies, the International Monetary Fund said in a review of a $1.4 billion loan program (Bloomberg).

Angola is making “concerted efforts” to explain a $32bn gap in the government’s accounts, which apparently was caused by undocumented spending on infrastructure projects, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said (BusinessDay).

The Angolan government does not plan to take out another loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when its US$1.4 billion loan under the terms of a stand by agreement is concluded this year, Angola’s Economy Minister said (Macauhub).

BUSINESS

Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol EP and some of the country’s banks are interested in stakes in Portuguese companies, Angolan Economy Minister Abraao Gourgel said (Bloomberg).

AGRI ETC

Angolan state company Mecanegro will be the target of a modernisation programme that will be funded by a US$40 million loan provided by the Export Import (ExIm) Bank of China, the chairman of the company said (Macauhub).

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MINING

Prospecting work to re-open the iron ore and manganese mines in Kassala-Kitungo, in Angola’s Kwanza Norte province, began last week. The project, which is part of public-private partnership involving state mining company Empresa Nacional de Ferro de Angola (Ferrangol) and Angola Exploration Mining Resources (AEMR), was launched in the first half of 2011 (Macauhub).

OIL & GAS

March loading cargoes of Angolan crude oil have nearly sold out, following relatively strong demand from Asia and a fall in the export volume for the month, traders said (Reuters).

Angola plans to reduce its daily crude oil exports in March by 12 percent to 1.61 million barrels a day, the lowest in nine months, according to a final loading program obtained by Bloomberg News.

Engen Petroleum Limited, the African downstream petroleum products refiner and marketer, has acquired the assets of Chevron in seven countries in sub-Sahara Africa, namely Nigeria and Angola. “We have completed the integration process, now the sky is the limit as we seek to become the champion in Africa,” Henry Akwaboah, managing director of Engen, Ghana, stated at an award ceremony in Accra (Businessdayonline) .

TELECOMS

Vodacom Group Ltd. plans to pull out of the Democratic Republic of Congo by selling its 51 percent stake in a local mobile-phone business to MTN Group Ltd. or Unitel SA of Angola (Businessweek).

TOURISM

Angola is expected to register until 2020 a movement of four million tourists, the minister of Hotel and Tourism, Pedro Mutindi, said in Luanda  (ANGOP).

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Render of the Lobito Towers mixed project for Lobito (Skyscrapercity).

POLITICS

Angola’s Magistrates Superior Council re-elected Judge Suzana Nicolau Ingles as chairman of the country’s Electoral Commission, Radio Nacional de Angola reported, citing Adelino de Almeida, vice minister for territorial administration (Bloomberg).

Angola’s government has denied a report by Human Rights Watch suggesting that 32 billion dollars are missing from state funds, thought to be linked to the state oil company Sonangol (Vanguard).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

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ECONOMY

Angola’s foreign-currency reserves rose 44 percent last year to reach $25.02 billion in December as Africa’s second-biggest oil producer benefited from rising crude prices, a document from Angola’s central bank showed (Bloomberg).

Angola’s Economy minister, Abraão Gourgel, said that Angola was open to small and medium-sized Portuguese companies that wanted to set themselves up in the country (Macauhub).

Angola loses about Usd 18 million per year out of idle hours spent by workers, especially in activities started with a delay. The disclosure came from the chairman of the Angola Industrial Association (AIA), José Severino (Angop).

MINING

Endiama EP, Angola’s state-owned diamond company, will focus on finding new diamond deposits following a surge in gem prices that has spurred foreign investor interest in the industry (Bloomberg).

China’s increasing demand for diamonds is expected to support Angolan diamond exports and prices in 2012, said Antonio Jose Freitas, a spokesman for state-owned diamond company Endiama EP (Bloomberg).

Kymberlite exploration company Sociedade Mineira de Catoca (SMC) in 2011 produced around 6.7 million carats of diamonds and posted gross revenues of US$611 million, the company’s managing director said (Macauhub).

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OIL & GAS

CPC Corp., a Taiwan state-run oil company, bought 4 million barrels of Angolan crude for loading in March via a tender, according to four traders who participate in the market (Businessweek).

POLITICS

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is expected to confirm later this month that he will lead his MPLA party in a general election in the third quarter of the year. With Dos Santos apparently ready to go ahead with a re-election bid, the focus is on the MPLA’s choice for No. 2 on its candidate list for the election to be announced this month. This may signal the choice of a successor. Read about the key political risks to watch in Angola at Reuters.

ECONOMY

The privatisation programme underway in Portugal offers “rich pickings” for Angolan companies interested in making acquisitions, and oil and gas company Galp Energia is at the top of the “shopping list,” according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Attracting Angolan investment was a priority at the recent visit to Luanda by Portuguese Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho (Macauhub).

The lifetime of Angola’s oil reserves, which had previously been estimated at 20 years, has been increased to 50 years following the start of exploration of the pre-salt layer, according to a projection from oil company BP (Macauhub).

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AGRI ETC

Agricultural production in Angola in 2011 posted growth of 8 percent against 2010, the Angolan Minister for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fishing, Afonso Pedro Canga announced (Macauhub).

The Angolan government has accused Namibian cattle farmers of orchestrating land grabs inside Angola. Namibian communal farmers in the northern areas graze their cattle and goats in Angola where the farmers also reportedly engage in illegal land grabs because of the fertility of the soil in the oil-rich country (New Era).

BANKING

Angolan banks are preparing to handle hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign oil companies operating in the African country when a law requiring them to use local lenders comes into effect later this year. Emidio Pinheiro, the chief executive officer of Banco Fomento Angola, the country’s second biggest private bank, expects oil companies to start using local banks to pay part of their taxes and suppliers by the end of June (Bloomberg).

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Atlantico Weekly is freely distributed and we like to keep it that way.

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OIL & GAS

Angola expects to increase oil output to 2 million barrels per day (mbpd) in 2014 from an estimated 1.8 mbpd this year due to new fields coming on line, oil minister Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos was quoted as saying (Reuters).

Angola produced 548 million barrels of crude, or an average of 1.65 million barrels a day, from January to October, he said (Bloomberg).

Iraqi police say insurgents disguised as soldiers have attacked a small oil field being developed by Sonangol in the north of the country, damaging equipment but causing no casualties (Washington Post).

TRANSPORT

The commercial director of Angolan regional railroad company Caminho-de-Ferro de Benguela (CFB), Aquiles de Carvalho, said that the company intended for its trains to reach Luena, the capital of Moxico province, by 30 April of this year (Macauhub).

VARIOUS

A New Jersey concert promoter and his son were marooned in Angola, unable to leave the country while authorities investigate a canceled New Year’s Eve show by the rapper Nas (Fox News).

At least 270 citizens of various nationalities were taken to court in 2011 in northern Cabinda province for helping illegal immigration, the local director of the Migration and Foreigners Service (SME), Manuel Gomes, said (AllAfrica).