Trade between Angola and Portugal to increase by around 50% by 2022

Portugal’s economy minister said Wednesday that imports and exports between Angola and Portugal have increased by around 50 percent this year compared to last year and acknowledged that cooperation should be “continuously expanded.”

João Neves, who is on a working visit to Luanda, noted that economic cooperation between Angola and Portugal had recovered this year after two years of being considered very difficult due to the pandemic.

After the inauguration and visit to the new facilities of the ISQ APAVE group in Luanda, Neves said he was in Angola to seek solutions for “more intense cooperation between Angola and Portugal, especially in the economic field.”

“This is a working visit, and we will certainly have opportunities to sign agreements, depending on the work we will do from now on, and to sign agreements in different areas during the next year,” he told Lusa.

Portugal “is very interested in strengthening the professional qualification tools in Angola in line with the investment objectives that Portuguese companies can pursue in the country,” he said.

“And we certainly have a lot of investments that companies are considering in different areas so that this vocational qualification process can be carried out effectively,” he noted.

More than 4,000 Portuguese companies export products and services to Angola and have the “natural concerns” of a market with different characteristics than the European market, the Portuguese secretary of state noted,

“We have to deal with the economic environment, and the perspective is to find solutions to the existing problems. This is the feeling I have gained in my discussions with the Portuguese companies here,” he said.

According to the Portuguese government representative, the concerns of Portuguese companies in Angola are surmountable, and he expects a substantial recovery of their business in the Angolan market in the coming years.

Portuguese companies should also focus in the next few years on areas that “may not have been the subject of cooperation, such as the textile, clothing and footwear sectors,” and find solutions to the needs of the Angolan domestic market, he noted.

“We have a work program that will certainly allow us to strengthen cooperation in this sector (the textile and footwear industry), which is still very limited,” he explained.

“We understand Angola’s needs, we understand the government’s objectives, the investments that are being made, and what we want is to collaborate in this process and provide Angola with the great experience in these sectors in Portugal, which are among the most competitive in the world,” João Neves said.

The Portuguese Secretary of State for the Economy visited and inaugurated on Tuesday the new facilities of the ISQ APAVE group in Luanda, located on Kima Kienda street in the Boavista neighborhood in the Ingombota district.

ISQ is a Portuguese company operating in Angola for 20 years in partnership with the French APAVE, providing services in the Angolan gas, oil, and agribusiness sectors.