The diversification of the Angolan economy represents a big challenge that demands political compromise and consistent measures, said last Friday in Luanda one of the board directors of the National Institute for Small and Medium Enterprises (Inapem), Samora Kitumba.

Speaking on the topic Direct Foreign Investment, in the ambit of the national process of diversifying the economy, Samora Kitumba said that the country is undergoing a very challenging economic diversification process.

He informed that in the executive and operational domains, the Angolan government has identified a series of priority and structural projects with socioeconomic viability and attractiveness.

Thus, he revealed that the current investments in the pipeline for the next five years are estimated at USD 52 billion and are mainly for the sectors of waters and energy, food production and agribusiness.

He went on to say that in the housing sector, the projects are turned to the construction of infrastructures, social residences and assistance to the construction material industry, with the overall investment estimated to reach 6.3 billion US dollars.

He said 123 structural projects are also in stock for the sectors of transports and logistics, through an overall investment of USD 24 billion, whereas for the geology and mining sector it is intended to see a focus on exploration of diamonds and other minerals through a USD 21 billion investment.

In the telecommunications and information technologies domain, he disclosed, it is expected a focus on the development of new generation networks and new projects to guarantee general access to information technologies, through a 1.55 billion investment.

“Since we’ve realized the needs in terms of financial resources to support these projects, we’ve come to the conclusion that the resources are scarce. Therefore, we need to resort to either external financing or private initiatives (… )”, Samora Kitumba explained to ANGOP.

These initiatives, he said, besides helping to attract resources may also bring know-how, experience and quality in the execution of the projects.

“In this stage, among other elements that are part of the diversification process, we are of the opinion that there must be a focus on direct foreign investment and that conditions must be created internally so that this attraction (of investments) can be an easy process, less bureaucratic and that it may bring about more feasible solutions in terms of the national production, with a view to promoting exports”, emphasised the source.

Source: AllAfrica