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China in Africa: why Angola’s economy is likely to rely on Chinese financing for decades to come
- For the past six years, the country’s president has been trying to cut its reliance on oil and Chinese debt
- Luanda used surging crude prices to pay down some borrowings but Chinese lenders are still the main players in town
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Since becoming Angolan president in 2017, Joao Lourenço has been trying to diversify the economy away from oil and to reduce the country’s dependence on China.
To that end, Lourenço has been trying to align more with the United States and Europe, than China – as was the case with his predecessor, the late José Eduardo dos Santos, who attracted Chinese capital for the reconstruction of the economy after the 26-year civil war ended in 2002.
But observers say it might take decades to reduce the country’s reliance on China, the key destination for Angolan crude petroleum, petroleum gas and asphalt mixtures.
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“The process of diversifying the economy away from a reliance on oil and Chinese debt will take decades to achieve, but the government is on the right track,” said Gerrit van Rooyen, an economist at Oxford Economics Africa in South Africa.
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China-built hydropower station in Angola enters main construction phase
China-built hydropower station in Angola enters main construction phase
Recent investment from the United States includes US$900 million in funding for a solar plant and a US$250 million proposal to fund the Lobito Atlantic Railway Corridor – an open access rail line from Lobito Port in Angola to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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