Angola

Elevation:
elevation extremes: lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
highest point: Moca 2,620 m
arable land 8.3%; permanent crops 0.5%; permanent pasture 91.23%
Forest: 46.5%
Other: 6% (2014 est.)
Population – distribution:
People and Society
Angola has never been densely populated, and the export of at least five million slaves between 1500 and 1850 kept the population from growing at a greater rate. At the beginning of the 21st century, the country’s population density was well below the average for Southern Africa, with vast areas in the semidesert coastal strip and the eastern two-thirds of the country almost empty. During the civil war (1975–2002), it is estimated that warfare killed about a half million people; famine and disease, exacerbated by the conflict, are estimated to have killed an additional half million people as well. However, the population growth rate remained high during this time and later increased after the end of the war.
More than a decade after the end of Angola’s 27-year civil war, the country still faces a variety of socioeconomic problems, including poverty, high maternal and child mortality, and illiteracy. Despite the country’s rapid post-war economic growth based on oil production, more than 40 percent of Angolans live below the poverty line and unemployment is widespread, especially among the large young-adult population. Only about 70% of the population is literate, and the rate drops to around 60% for women. The youthful population – about 45% are under the age of 15 – is expected to continue growing rapidly with a fertility rate of more 5 children per woman and a low rate of contraceptive use. Fewer than half of women deliver their babies with the assistance of trained health care personnel, which contributes to Angola’s high maternal mortality rate. Of the estimated 550,000 Angolans who fled their homeland during its civil war, most have returned home since 2002. In 2012, the UN assessed that conditions in Angola had been stable for several years and invoked a cessation of refugee status for Angolans. Following the cessation clause, some of those still in exile returned home voluntarily through UN repatriation programs, and others integrated into host countries.
Population:
29,310,273 (July 2017 est)
Nationality:
Angolan(s)
Ethnic groups:
Ovimbundu 37%, Kimbundu 25%, Bakongo 13%, mestico (mixed European and native African) 2%, European 1%, other 22
Languages:
Portuguese 71.2% (official), Umbundu 23%, Kikongo 8.2%, Kimbundu 7.8%, Chokwe 6.5%, Nhaneca 3.4%, Nganguela 3.1%, Fiote 2.4%, Kwanhama 2.3%, Muhumbi 2.1%, Luvale 1%, other 3.6%
Religions:
Roman Catholic 41.1%, Protestant 38.1%, other 8.6%, none 12.3% (2014 est.)
Education
Almost three decades of civil war have taken a toll on Angola’s educational system. In the early 21st century, some four-fifths of all schools in the country were thought to be deserted or destroyed, and the vast majority of Angolan children were not able to attend classes. Since the end of the conflict in 2002, an effort has been made to construct more schools and increase the training and number of teachers in the country.
Angola’s literacy rate is lower than that of most neighboring countries, despite dramatic improvement during the last quarter of the 20th century. At independence, less than one-fifth of the adult population was literate, but by 1990 the rate had more than doubled. In the early 21st century, about three-fifths of the population was literate
Education in Angola has four years of compulsory, free primary education which begins at age seven, and secondary education which begins at age eleven, lasting eight years. Basic adult literacy continues to be extremely low, but there are conflicting figures from government and other sources. It is difficult to assess literacy and education needs. Statistics available in 2001 from UNICEF estimated adult literacy to be 56 percent for males and 29 percent for women. On the other hand, the university system has been developing considerably over the last decade.
After the end of the Angolan Civil War in 2002, and with the oil price increases in the late 2000s, the Angolan Government was able to collect huge financial resources from taxes on oil and diamond extraction profits. This increase of the governmental budget plus the end of the armed conflict allowed a new opportunity to expand and improve Angola’s education system.
Immediately after independence, the colonial Universidade de Luanda has renamed Universidade de Angola, and in 1979 Universidade Agostinho Neto (UAN). In 1998 the Catholic Church founded, also in Luanda, the Universidade Católica de Angola (UCAN). Over the years, the UAN came to consist of about 40 faculties dispersed over most of the territory. In the wake of political liberalization, private universities began to spring up in the 2000s.
Some of these were linked to universities in Portugal — Universidade Lusíada, Universidade Lusófona and Universidade Jean Piaget — all of them in Luanda. Others were endogenous initiatives: Universidade Privada de Angola (Luanda and Lubango), Universidade Técnica de Angola (Luanda), Universidade Metodista (Luanda), Universidade Metropolitana (Luanda) and Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Relações Internacionais (Luanda). The creation of an Islamic university in Luanda was announced by Saudi Arabia. In 2009, the UAN split up: while it still exists under the same name in Luanda and Bengo province, the faculties in Benguela, Cabinda, Huambo, Lubango, Malanje, and Uíge, now constitute autonomous public universities.
In 2010, the Angolan government started building the Angolan Media Libraries Network, distributed throughout several provinces in the country to facilitate the people’s access to information and knowledge. Each site has a bibliographic archive, multimedia resources and computers with Internet access, as well as areas for reading, researching and socializing. The plan envisages the establishment of one media library in each Angolan province by 2017. The project also includes the implementation of several media libraries, in order to provide the several contents available in the fixed media libraries to the most isolated populations in the country. At this time, the mobile media libraries are already operating in the provinces of Luanda, Malanje, Uíge, Cabinda and Lunda South. As for REMA, the provinces of Luanda, Benguela, Lubango, and Soyo have currently working media libraries
Economy
Angola has diamonds, oil, gold, copper and a rich wildlife (dramatically impoverished during the civil war), forest and fossil fuels. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture dramatically dropped in the Angolan Civil War but began to recover after 2002. The transformation industry of the late colonial period collapsed at independence, because of the exodus of most of the ethnic Portuguese population, but it has begun to re-emerge with updated technologies, partly because of an influx of new Portuguese entrepreneurs. Similar developments have taken place in the service sector.
Angola’s economy has in recent years moved on from the disarray caused by a quarter-century of Angolan civil war to become the fastest-growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest-growing in the world. Angola’s economy is overwhelmingly driven by its oil sector. Oil production and its supporting activities contribute about 50% of GDP, more than 70% of government revenue, and more than 90% of the country’s exports; Angola is an OPEC member and subject to its direction regarding oil production levels. Diamonds contribute an additional 5% to exports. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for most of the people, but half of the country’s food is still imported.
Increased oil production supported growth averaging more than 17% per year from 2004 to 2008. A postwar reconstruction boom and resettlement of displaced persons led to high rates of growth in construction and agriculture as well. Some of the country’s infrastructure is still damaged or undeveloped from the 27-year-long civil war. However, the government since 2005 has used billions of dollars in credit from China, Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and the EU to help rebuild Angola’s public infrastructure. Landmines left from the war still mar the countryside, and as a result, the national military, international partners, and private Angolan firms all continue to remove them.
The global recession that started in 2008 stalled Angola’s economic growth and many construction projects stopped because Luanda accrued billions in arrears to foreign construction companies when government revenue fell. Lower prices for oil and diamonds also resulted in GDP falling 0.7% in 2016. Angola formally abandoned its currency peg in 2009 but reinstituted it in April 2016 and maintains an overvalued exchange rate. In late 2016, Angola lost the last of its dollar-clearing international correspondent banking relationships, further exacerbating hard currency problems. Since 2013 the central bank has consistently spent down reserves to defend the kwanza, gradually allowing a 40% depreciation since late 2014. Consumer inflation declined from 325% in 2000 to less than 9% in 2014, before rising again to above 30% from 2015-2017.
Continued low oil prices, the depreciation of the kwanza, and slower than expected growth in non-oil GDP have reduced growth prospects, although several major international oil companies remain in Angola. Corruption, especially in the extractive sectors, is a major long-term challenge that poses an additional threat to the economy.
$189.2 billion (2016 est.)
$190.5 billion (2015 est.)
GDP – real growth rate:
-0.7% (2016 est.)
3% (2015 est.)
$6,900 (2016 est.)
$7,200 (2015 est.
3.3% of GDP (2016 est.)
-0.4% of GDP (2015 est.)
industry: 61.4%
services: 28.4% (2011 est.)
Industries:
Budget:
expenditures: $44.64 billion (2017 est.)
Agriculture
Agriculture accounts for 12 percent of Angola’s $96.2 billion GDP in 2016 (IMF projection) and provides employment, both formal and informal, for more than two-thirds of Angolans, mostly at subsistence levels. Prior to the 1975-2002 civil war, Angola was a major exporter of coffee, sisal, sugar cane, banana and cotton, and self-sufficient in all food crops except wheat. The civil war disrupted agricultural production and displaced millions of people. Angola currently imports more than half of its food, with some estimates putting the figure as high as 90 percent. Angola is the United States’ fifth largest market for poultry products in the world and the third largest market in Africa for all agricultural exports.
Angola has the natural resources to become one of the leading agricultural countries in Africa, as its diverse and fertile ecology is suited for a variety of crops and livestock. However, the country currently only cultivates approximately 10 percent of its 35 million hectares of arable land. An estimated 90 percent of farms in Angola are small to medium in size and are used mainly for communal, subsistence farming. The agricultural commodities produced include cassava, bananas, potatoes, maize, sweet potatoes, citrus, and pineapples.
The World Bank is currently developing a comprehensive agricultural sector development program for Angola anticipated being in place by the end of 2017 that would greatly expand their role beyond previous projects focused on smallholder agriculture land rehabilitation and irrigation.
While chicken and pinto beans remain major US agriculture exports to Angola, these sales declined significantly in 2016 due to the limited access to foreign exchange and increased food prices resulting from local currency devaluation and high inflation. Food imports are deemed a high priority of the Angolan government with some associated increases in foreign exchange allocations by the Central Bank. A limited number of food importers pre-selected by the Ministry of Commerce benefit from these allocations.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Angola produced about 25,000 tons of wheat grain per year, mainly in the southern Huambo province. The civil war halted wheat production and destroyed flour milling capacity.
Faced with lost oil revenue, the Angola government is encouraging the development of wheat milling to replace relatively costly flour imports as part of its overall economic diversification plan. Angola currently imports about 500,000 tons of wheat flour per year from Turkey and the European Union, at a value of $177 million in 2015. By replacing flour imports with wheat imports, Angola can reduce its dependence on foreign exchange as well as boost value-added local production. The Angolan government and private companies plan to bolster the milling industry make the country a promising market for U.S. wheat exports. The U.S. Wheat Associates estimates that the United States could export up to $25 million in wheat annually to Angola.
Wheat milling projects underway in Angola include the Grandes Moagens de Angola project that will have the capacity to produce 1,200 tons of wheat flour per day, with the opening scheduled for mid-2017. Carangelo invested $250,000 to reopen a mill in Lobito with a capacity to produce 100 tons per day of wheat flour and 30 tons per day of wheat bran. Additional renovations to the mill are planned for 2018, at a cost of $6 million that could increase production to 500 tons per day of wheat flour and 150 tons per day of wheat bran. These expansions open strong opportunities for U.S. wheat exporters particularly once the import duty disadvantage of milling wheat flour in Angola is addressed.
Manufacturing and Industries
Angola was the popular slave trade market for the Portuguese and Dutch during the colonial era. Portugal administration discovered oil reserves in Angola in 1955. Large-scale oil and coffee production helped the country in achieving sustainable economic growth. Angola also had industries for food processing, electrical products, construction material, chemical, vehicle assembly, and metallurgy. After attaining independence in 1975, the country entered into 26 long years of civil war that left Angola’s economy in a state of jeopardy. In the year 2000, the government initiated major economic reforms to restructure the industrial sector of the country. The IMF and World Bank also funded strategic reforms to strengthen the infrastructure and business environment in Angola.
The major Angola industry sectors are:
Oil: Angola is one of the biggest oil producers in Africa, second only to Nigeria. In 2007, the petroleum industry contributed for more than 60% of the country’s GDP. The country ranks 18th in terms of total oil exports (1.407 million bbl/day). Sonangol, a state-owned firm, governs the petroleum sectors. Foreign firms also have a joint venture on the basis of production sharing agreement.
Diamond: Angola is sometimes referred to as the ‘land of conflicting diamonds’. The country has rich deposits of diamonds, one of the prime reasons for the 1975-2002 civil war. During this period, a large portion of diamonds produced was sold to the black market. After 2003, the diamond mining sector was regularized and opened for private investment as well.
Agriculture: Angola’s climate is favorable for tropical and semi-tropical crops. This, coupled with the fertile land of the region allows the growth of several cash crops. Coffee, tobacco, sunflower, timber, and banana are the major crops of the country. Although the GDP share of the agriculture has decreased since 2003, it engages more than half of the population.
Fishing: Angola has a developed fishing industry with considerable foreign investment. The fishing industry is completely liberalized and the government no longer regulates the pricing policy.
Angola is still recovering from the aftereffects of the civil war. With financial support from the UN, IMF and the World Bank, the Angola economy plans to diversify in terms of industry sectors.
Mining
Angola’s mineral industry was dominated by diamond and petroleum production. In 2011, Angola’s economy grew by 3.4%, but unlike that of recent years, this growth was not driven by increases in petroleum production. Nonetheless, petroleum accounted for 96.2% of exports and 79% of Government revenues. Diamond accounted for about 1.8% of exports, 6.7% of world diamond production by volume, and about 8% of world diamond production by value (Banco Nacional de Angola, 2012, p. 12, 15, 26; Kimberley Process Rough Diamond Statistics, 2012). Other mineral commodities produced in the country included cement, granite, marble, and salt. Angola had vast mineral resources available for prospecting and development. Undeveloped mineral resources included beryllium, clay, copper, gold, gypsum, iron ore, lead, lignite, manganese, mica, nickel, peat, phosphate rock, quartz, silver, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, wolfram, and zinc.
Since the discovery of Petroleum in 1955, Angola has been one of the largest exporters of petroleum in sub-Saharan Africa, and production has nearly tripled since independence. In January 2007 Angola became a member of OPEC. By 2010 production is expected to double the 2006 output level with development of deep-water offshore oil fields. Oil sales generated USD 1.71 billion in tax revenue in 2004 and now makes up 80% of the government’s budget, a 5% increase from 2003, and 45% of GDP. Chevron Corporation produces and receives. Total S.A., ExxonMobil, Eni, Petrobras and BP also operate in the country. Block Zero provides the majority of Angola’s crude oil production. The largest fields in Block Zero are Takula (Area A), Numbi (Area A), and Kokongo (Area B). Chevron operates in Block Zero with a 39.2% share. SONANGOL, the state oil company, Total, and Eni own the rest of the block. Chevron also operates Angola’s first producing deepwater section.
The National Diamond Enterprise of Angola, a parastatal company, is responsible for approving diamond concessions, and it also licenses buyers. In 1992–94 most Angolan diamonds on the market were mined and smuggled from regions controlled by UNITA. The Angolan government gained control of this area in mid-1994 and tried to halt the activities of thousands of illegal diamond prospectors. UNITA retook some diamond regions in the mid- to late 1990s and controlled them until early 2002, when UNITA’s leader, Jonas Savimbi, was killed. There are large reserves of iron ore in the southwestern part of the country, but they are of low grade. Other minerals—copper, manganese, gold, phosphates, uranium, feldspar, and platinum—are known to exist in commercial quantities in Angola, especially in the area of the escarpment.
China is the major destination of Angola Export. Angola is the third-largest trading partner of the United States in Sub-Saharan Africa, largely because of its petroleum exports. The U.S. imports 7% of its oil from Angola, about three times as much as it imported from Kuwait just prior to the Gulf War in 1991. The U.S. Government has invested USD $4 billion in Angola’s petroleum sector. Oil makes up over 90% of Angola’s exports.
Tourism
Until 1975, Angola had developed some tourist tradition which was later canceled by the war. Few know the great tourist potential of this territory that remained closed to the world for decades. Tourism, like other wealth of the country, is still just a “potential” factor, but certainly, Angola offers many opportunities in this regard, thanks to its vast and extremely varied territory of the climatic point of view, agricultural and landscape, still unknown by the large audience of international tourism. Some South African entrepreneurs and Namibians are already exploring, with considerable success, this potential.
It may seem overly optimistic to talk about tourism in a country that has just emerged from a civil war of 27 years duration, with its infrastructure destroyed, but that’s exactly what makes Angola a particularly interesting case also for this sector. In addition to the hard-to-reach areas within the country, are broad areas that already offer interesting possibilities for investments in the tourism sector. Of course, even if this is a tourism-oriented to a niche market entrepreneur and less demanding in terms of comfort. The virgin territory is very suitable for eco-tourism, sustainability, respectful of the environment, especially in areas characterized by a more delicate environmental balance.
That may be the reason, the tourism industry in Angola is based on the country’s natural beauty, including its rivers, waterfalls, and scenic coastline. Angola’s tourism industry is relatively new, as much of the country was destroyed during the post-colonial civil war which ended in 2002. Unlike most countries in the region, which generally give US, EU, and many other citizens a visa on arrival or require no visa at all, Angola has complicated and onerous Soviet-style visa requirements. This antiquated attitude to tourism places the country at a disadvantage in a competitive market for international tourism.
From nature at its most spectacular with springboks, lions, elephants, and gorillas, to forgotten but beautiful buildings from the Portuguese colonization here. Angola boasts an expansive coastline of Atlantic Ocean beauty and a beautiful blend of grasslands, savannas, tropical forests, and urban expanses inland. Angola is a country trying to make a name for itself on the global stage. It claims to be the fastest-growing economy in the world, with various forms of mining exports supporting the claim and the tourist industry is attempting to grow in the same way.
Angola has the capacity to become a new frontier of twenty-first-century tourism. Taking all necessary precautions to travel in safety, including from the health point of view, the tourist discovers huge unexplored territories, which remained isolated from the world for many years and for the first time, open to foreigners.
Three examples of investment in the tourism sector: tropical beaches between Luanda and Benguela, with lovely panoramas and scope of contemporary tourist; Namibe the desert (which marks the beginning of the desert that gives the name to the neighboring country, Namibia), as beautiful as Namibia in terms of natural beauty and cultural interest; the mountains breathtaking Planalto Huila.
Banking and Finance
The banking system in Angola includes Accounts, credit cards & exchanging money. The Angolan banking system is the third-largest in Sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria and South Africa. There are three state-owned banks and a total of 23 banks in Angola. Nearly half the Angolan financial system is linked to banking groups in Portugal.
The top five banks, based on compound growth rates, control over 80% of total banking assets, deposits and loans and are: Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI), Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA), Banco de Fomento Angola (BFA), Banco BIC Angola (BIC) , and Banco de Poupança e Crédito S.A.R.L. (BPC) .