Logistics and Distribution Centres, with a central role in wholesale and retail supply and price formation, are open to the private sector in Angola, under new legislation already in force.
Presidential Decree No. 174/18 approving the Regulation on the Organisation and Functioning of Logistics and Distribution Centres (CLOD), defined as sites with support infrastructures for producers, distributors and other economic agents engaged in activities related to them and made up of supply markets, warehouses, distribution companies and the provision of services allowed by law came into force on 26 July.
According to the Legis-Palop+TL Regional Coordination, the installation of CLODs, which predominantly carry out wholesale and retail commercial operations for food and non-food products, may be privately run, with authorisation from the Ministry of Trade, which issues recommendations and directives to the managing body of the CLODs, which assume the nature of a public service.
At the same time, the initiative may begin with the State itself, through the Ministries of Trade or of Territorial Administration and State Reform or other legal entities governed by public law.
The Ministry of Trade is the competent authority to appoint the CLOD Board in the case of public management or to authorise the management of a private entity, which will be awarded through a public tender and exercised via a contract of sale and operation.
It will be the responsibility of the board or managing entity of the CLOD to decide the access by operators to it, including the allocation of a permanent commercial space, made official through a written contract that must include the fees to be paid.
The implementation of CLODs, considered as strategic instruments for the implementation of various policy measures, directly or indirectly related to the trade sector, is mainly intended to standardise activity in the wholesale, retail and other sectors, through the formalisation of the economy, particularly in terms of concentrating production and its role as main source of supply for trade.
Another goal, according to Legis-Palop+TL, is to make the price formation process more transparent and competitive, as a way of increasing domestic production, raising farmers’ and industrial incomes, and gradually replacing imports.
The CLODs bring together in a single physical space wholesale and retail trade transactions and other related activities, rationalising and modernising the logistics and distribution circuits, and improving conditions of supply to the populations, providing better quality products, greater variety in hygiene and freshness, and, indirectly, at more favourable prices. (macauhub)
Source: macauhub
