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Mozambique: Mozal aluminium foundry heads list of top 100 Mozambican companies - KPMG 2008-12-12 Maputo, Mozambique, 12 Dec – The Mozal aluminium foundry once again topped the list of Mozambique’s 100 biggest firms, according to the 10th edition of the annual report of consulting company KPMG - Moçambique. This is the sixth consecutive year in which the foundry, which is majority-owned by Australia’s BHP Billiton, has been named the biggest in Mozambique. In second place was the Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric dam, which has been majority owned by the Mozambican state since the end of last year. Mozambican mobile telecommunications operator, Mcel, rose in the ranking from fourth to third place, whilst oil company Petromoc fell from third to fourth place. Power company, Electricidade de Moçambique, beer maker Cervejas de Moçambique and BP Moçambique, were ranked fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively. The Millennium Bim bank rose from ninth to eighth place, Motraco from 11th to ninth place, whilst Sasol Petroleum Temane fell from eigth to tenth place. Speaking before the presentation of the ranking of the “100 Top Companies,” the managing director of KPMG Moçambique, Filipe Mandlate, said that this initiative aimed to promote competition between companies and contribute to increasing transparency in managing businesses. This year KPMG introduced a new ranking of the five best companies over the last ten years, which was won by Global Alliance cgsm Seguros, followed by Cornelder and Toyota de Moçambique.
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Cape Verde: Portugal grants budgetary aid of 1.5 million euros for 2009 2008-12-12 Praia, Cape Verde, 12 Dec – Portugal and Cape Verde Friday in Praia signed a “memorandum of understanding for budgetary aid” via which Portugal will provide budgetary aid of 1.5 million euros to the archipelago. Portugal is one of the countries that provides direct budgetary aid to Cape Verde and between 2008 and 2011 will provide an amount of 7 million euros. Currently seven countries and institutions directly sponsor the Cape Verdean state budget. Portugal also supports Cape Verde in projects linked to good governance, participation and democracy, sustainable development and fighting poverty. As well as Portugal, the following also directly support Cape Verde’s budget: Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, the European Union, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. The Cape Verdean state budget for 2009 outlines expenditure of the equivalent of 453 million euros.
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Brazil: Portugal’s EDP to continue with investments in Brazil, chairman says 2008-12-12 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 12 Dec – EDP Energias do Brasil plans to go ahead with its investment programme in Brazil, totalling 4.4 billion reais until 2012, despite the current financial crisis, the company’s chairman said in Sao Paulo Thursday. António Pita de Abreu, said that the resources for investments in 2009 had already been secured and that the Brazilian subsidiary was “financially self-sustaining” in relation to its parent company, EDP Energias de Portugal. On the sidelines of a seminar entitled, “The energy sector in Brazil,” hosted by the company, Pita de Abreu said that for next year, investments in Brazil for confirmed projects would total around 1.2 billion reais. Part of that funding will be carried out via a credit line granted by Brazilian bank Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Económico. The 900 million real land, announced last week, will be applied to three Energias do Brasil companies, namely distribution companies Bandeirante, Escelsa and Energest. Most of the resources will be invested in production projects that will double the group’s installed capacity, from 1,043 to 2,302 megawatts in 2012.
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Mozambique: Açucareira de Moçambique sugar company invests in boosting production 2008-12-11 Maputo, Mozambique, 11 Dec – Mozambican sugar company Açucareira de Moçambique (AM) is currently investing US$20 million on a project to increase its sugar cane plantation area and modernisation of its irrigation system, according to Mozambican news agency AIM. The aim of the project, the agency said, was for AM, which is located in Mafambisse in Sofala province and is 75 percent owned by South African group Tongaat Hulett, can produce quality sugar cane in order to increase production from a current 50,000 tonnes per year to 85,000 tonnes per year. The chief executive of AM, Paul Davillas, said that new pumps installed next to the Muda river, would be capable of irrigating an area of 2,100 hectares of cane. As of 2009, Davillas said, sugar cane will start to be transported from the plantation to the factory by rail, which would substantially reduce its transport costs, as so far cane has been transported in trucks and the plantation is 60 kilometres away from the factory. The company plans to increase production to benefit from opportunities offered by the European Union of imports without quotas and customs charges from developing countries covered by the Anything But Arms initiative.
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Angola: Angolan bank granted credit line by Spain’s Banesto 2008-12-11 Luanda, Angola, 11 Dec – Angolan bank, Banco de Poupança e Crédito (BPC) has been granted a credit line of 100 million euros by Spanish bank Banco Banesto, according to a report in Angolan newspaper Jornal de Angola. Na addendum to the agreement, signed on 4 December, will allow Bano Banesto to provide credit lines to fund social projects, guaranteed by the Angolan government, via the Finance Ministry. On signing the agreement, the amount provided by Banesto has risen to a total 150 million euros, whose own part is focused on importing equipment and other goods and services. The chairman of the board of BPC, Paixão Júnior, and Foreign Markets Director of Banco Banesto, Cristina Rivuelta Garcia, headed the delegations that signed the deal. BPC is one of the banks in Angola focused on funding social projects.
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Sao Tome and Principe: United Nations and Spain help government to improve tourism 2008-12-11 Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe, 11 Dec – Various activities to improve rural tourism and folklore groups in Sao Tome and Principe were carried out in the country’s capital jointly organised by the Tourism and Hotels Directorate and tourist operators. Workshop and seminars were held throughout the week in the cultural area of the Brazilian Embassy in Sao Tome and Principe under the heading of “Interpretation of Heritage Applied to Creating Tourist Products.” Funding for the initiative was from the United Nations Development Programme, whose representative in Sao Tome and Principe, Maite Mendizabal, told Portuguese news agency Lusa that the Spanish international cooperation development agency was working with the Sao Tome authorities on this project. "The idea is for the archipelago to transform itself, in the medium term into one of the new hubs for attracting toruism on the African continent as a new model of rural tourism,” said Maite Mendizabal. In her turn, the director for Tourism and Hotels, Miriam Daio, said that a strategic plan was being drawn up for development of the sector, based on developing eco-tourism. Daio confirmed that Sao Tome and Principe would be present at the international tourism fairs in Madrid and Lisbon, which are held between January and February 2009.
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Portugal: BPI and Unitel sign deal for sale of 49 pct of Banco Fomento Angola 2008-12-10 Lisbon, Portugal, 10 Dec – Portuguese bank BPI and Angolan mobile telecom operator Unitel Tuesday in Luanda signed the final agreement for the sale of 49 percent of Banco Fomento Angola (BFA), the Portuguese bank said in Lisbon Tuesday. "With today’s transaction, a startegic partnership has been created between BPI and Unitel, focussed on BFA. This partnership will have the principal aim of developing the bank and providing na excellent service in Angola and creating conditions for other potential joint investment opportunities,” BPI said in a statement. The deal was made official following a memorandum of understanding signed in September by the two companies.
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Brazil: China’s Lenovo plans to buy Brazilian computer firm 2008-12-10 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 10 Dec – Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo is looking into acquiring Positivo, Brazil’s biggest personal computer manufacturer, which is also a target for US company Dell, Brazilian newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo reported. The paper said that officials from Lenovo recently visited the headquarters of Positivo, in Curitiba, and showed great interest in acquiring the company. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), Positivo accounted for 21.4 percent of the retail personal computer market in Brazil in the third quarter, but its market value fell to US$169 million due to the global financial crisis. In June Lenovo had cash reserves of US$1.8 billion, according to its report and accounts.
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Angola: Brazil’s Camargo Corrêa plans to build retail area with 10 buildings in Luanda 2008-12-09 Luanda, Angola, 9 Dec – Brazilian construction company Camargo Corrêa plans to build a commercial complex made up of ten buildings for Angolan and foreign companies interested in setting up bases in Angola, according to Angolan news agency Angop. Angop said that the project would be concluded in the next two years and that it would increase the company’s investment portfolio in Angola from a current US$100 million to US$500 million in 2010. Camargo Corrêa has been operating in Angola for two years and is working on construction of 5th and 7th avenues, including paving, containment and urban renewal of the Boavista area and refurbishment of roads in the municipalities of Cazenga and Rangel, in Luanda. Improving the road system in teh port of Luanda was the first contract the company signed in Angola, in 2006. The company employs 2,000 staff, 85 percent of which are Angolan. The company is also building an 84-kilometre road between Lubango and Benguela, as well as a 200-kilometre transmission line in Uíge province.
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Brazil: Two Portuguese and one Angolan company to bid for oil blocks in Brazil 2008-12-09 Brasilia, Brazil, 9 Dec – Brazil’s oil industry regulator has said that 47 companies have qualified to take part in the 10th round of bidding for oil blocks in the country, including Portugal’s Galp Energia and Partex and Angola’s Sonangol. The auction is due to take place on 18 and 19 December in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian National Oil Agency (ANP) said on its website. Thirty of the 47 candidates are Brazilian companies, including Petrobras, with which Portugal’s Galp Energia has a partnership to explore oil fields in Brazil. Amongst the other non-Brazilian companies are, BP, Anadarko, Hess, Royal Dutch Shell and Ecopetrol. According to the ANP, the 10th round of bidding is offering up blocks in eight sectors, totalling 70,000 square kilometres. The area up for auction covers seven sedimentary basins: Amazonas, Parecis, Potiguar, Recôncavo, Sergipe-Alagoas, São Francisco and Paraná. 130 blocks will be available for bidding, all of which on land: Of the initial areas planned for bidding, 32 blocks were removed in the basins of Araripe, Pernambuco-Paraíba and Paraná for technical and environmental reasons, the regulator said.
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Brazil: China offers loan to Brazilian oil company Petrobras 2008-12-09 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 9 Dec – China has offered Brazil a loan of US$10 billion for Brazilian oil company Petrobras to invest in exploration of the “pre-salt” layer, said Brazilian Mining and Energy Minister, Edison Lobão, in an interview published Monday in newspaper Folha de São Paulo. The minister also said that the Chinese reserved the right to demand a share in oil production in return for the loan. Edison Lobão said that Petrobras could even receive part of Brazil’s international reserves if it required resources to ensure that its investment programme could go ahead. Last week, Petrobras exploration and production director, Guilherme Estrella said that, despite the international financial crisis, the company would not reduce its investments or exclude projects from its new business plan for 2009-2013, which is due to be announced on 19 Dec. The director noted that the “pre-salt” layer projects would be added to the company’s current plans, which for the 2008-2012 period includes investments totalling US$112.4 billion.
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Mozambique: Air carrier LAM takes delivery of first Bombardier Q400 aircraft 2008-12-09 Maputo, Mozambique, 9 Dec – Mozambican airline Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM), is due next week to take delivery of its first turbo-prop Bombardier Q400 aircraft, the airline’s communication and marketing director, Adam Yusuf told Macauhub in Maputo. "Wea re going to receive the first Bombardier on 17 Dec and on the same day there will be an inaugural flight,” said Yussuf. Yussuf added that LAM would receive another aircraft from the same manufacturer before the end of the year, and that both aircraft had the capacity to carry 70 passengers. In 2009 the company will also take delivery of two Brazilian Embraer 190 aircraft, Yussuf said, adding that each of them had 93 seats. In his turn, the chairman of the board of LAM, José Viegas, said that by the end of 2009 three of the Boeing aircraft currently used by the airline would be retired from the fleet, and the fourth and final aircraft would be taken out of service in 2010. “The entire replacement of the fleet will be concluded in 2010,” Viegas said. The company had previsouly committed to renew its domestic and regional fleet, with a view to increasing the frequency of flights within Mozambique and to Angola, Kenya, and South Africa. LAM’s modernisation plan includes an investment, over the next three years, of US$100 million. LAM has a fleet made up of four jet planes and two turbo-props. Of the ai8craft that make up the fleet, four are Boeing 737-200s, two of which provide 12 executive class seats and 96 economy class seats, which have been used to transport passengers and cargo on medium haul routes, to domestic and regional destinations. As well as the 737-200, LAM also uses, via its subsidiary, Mex-Mozambique Express, two turbo-prop aircraft capable of carrying 29 passengers in economy class. These aircraft also operate on regional routes, to Johannesburg and Durban in South Africa, and domestic routes, including some internal tourist destinations, such as Vilankulo and Inhambane, in the south of the country.
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Macau: Macau invests US$6.3 million to receive more water from China 2008-12-05 Zhuhai, China, 5 Dec - The supply of water to Macau has been secured until 2020, after a new pipeline from the Chinese municipality of Zhuhai, which borders Macau, started operating, according to a government statement cited by news agency MacauNews. The inauguration of the third water pipeline to Macau was held today as part of the Macau-Guangdong Joint Cooperation Conference 2008, which took place in Zhuhai, with the presence of Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau Wah. The new 3.6-kilometre water pipeline represents an investment of 50 million reminbis (US$6.3 million), financed by the Macau government. The pipeline will supply 300,000 cubic metres more water per day to Macau, increasing the current figure to 480,000 cubic metres. Lau Si Io, the Macau Secretary of State for Transport and Public Works, said the government invested another 450 million yuan (US$65.5 million) on the construction of the Zhuyi reservoir, also in Zhuhai, to ensure the regular supply of water to Macau. The building of the reservoir, the total cost of which is estimated to be 819 million yuan (US$119.2 million), started Thursday and is expected to be finished in 2010. Macau receives 98 percent of its water from the Modaomen River in the Chinese province of Guangdong, while the remainder comes from Macau's reservoirs. Non-treated water is pumped from the Hong Wan facility to the Lapa reservoir in Zhuhai. Macau has a population of 531,000 people and in 2007 had an average daily water consumption of 207,000 cubic metres. Macau's water distribution network is 410 kilometres long. Zhuhai, a Chinese municipality bordering Macau, has a population of 1.4 million.
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Mozambique: Germany funds expansion of financial services in rural areas 2008-12-05 Maputo, Mozambique, 5 Dec – The Bank of Mozambique Tuesday in Maputo formally launched the Access to Finance Challenge Fund (AFCF) to fund activities to expand financial services in rural areas of Mozambique. The Access to Finance Challenge Fund is the result of a contract signed in December 2007 by the Mozambican and German governments, worth 1 million euros, to co-fund activities to expand banking services. As part of the fund, Germany’s "Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau" (KfW-Entwicklungsbank) plans to pay out 850,000 euros, to which Mozambican retail banks, micro-credit institutions and financial institutions will have access to expand their services to rural areas. Joana David, director of the Bank of Mozambique, said that the Fund would finance growth of coverage, by setting up more banking institutions in rural locations, as well as providing new banking products tailored to the reality of those areas. "The fundamental aim is to support micro-credit solutions, that is rural funding, because we all know that isolated areas of the country still have no coverage in terms of banking services,” David said. The country’s banking service covers only 10 percent of an estimated population of just over 20 million and most of the Mozambican population lives in rural areas, where these services are rare. The formal launch of the Fund is also the start of the period to receive proposals at the project implementation unit from all interested parties, the deadline for which is 12 February, 2009. After the phase of collecting proposals, an assessment commission created for the purpose will meticulously assess the content of the proposals that have been handed in and those that have been approved will be announced at a later date.
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Mozambique: Concession model extended to further 15 roads 2008-12-05 Maputo, Mozambique, 5 Dec – The concession road model, so far applied only to the road known as Maputo-Witbank in Mozambique, is to be extended to a further 15 main roads, Mozambique’s public works and housing, Felício Zacarias said in Maputo. Responding to questions in Mozambique’s parliament, the minister said that public tenders had been launched for concessions on roads such as Inchope/Caia, Beira/Machipanda, Cuchamano/Zóbuè, Maputo/Catembe/Ponta d’Ouro and Boane/Bela Vista. In his turn, the minsiter for Transport and Communications, Paulo Zucula, mentioned the licensing of 40 new inter-provincial road transport operators and a an increase to the public transport fleet in the city of Maputo to 150 units. Speaking at the end of the parliamentary session, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo said that the moves outlined were evidence of the Government’s efforts to find solutions to the problems of concern to the population. She noted the Government’s intention to increase food production, continue with the rural electricity programme, expansion of fixed and mobile telecommunications and improvement of education.
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Cape Verde: Luxembourg funds water supply and sanitation project in Cape Verde 2008-12-05 Sao Filipe, Cape Verde, 5 Dec – The project to improve the water supply and sanitation systems on the Cape Verdean islands of Fogo and Brava, funded by Luxembourg will boost the working capacity of water company Aguabrava, according to Cape Verdean news agency Inforpress. As part of the funding of 5.225 million euros (around 580 million Cape Verdean escudos), Aguabrava will acquire a set of equipment including a tanker truck with an 11 ton capacity, to improve the water supply system, particularly to those locations that do not currently have a public water supply, and four motorcycles to provide technical support. As part of the project, which is due to be launched at the end of this month, with the arrival of the equipment and material acquired abroad by the financiers, an old cement duct will be replaced over a stretch of some 24 kilometres, covering the localities of Brandão (São Filipe), Cova Figueira, in the council area of Santa Catarina, and a further 20 kilometres between the locations of São Pedro and Campanas Baixo, in the São Filipe council area. The project also includes replacing all water supply networks in the main urban araes, namely São Filipe, Vila de Igreja (Mosteiros) and Nova Sintra (Brava). The project, which will take 4 years, aims to expand the public water supply network to all areas as yet not covered in the municipal area of Sao Filipe, up to a height of 1,100 meters above sea level.
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Angola: Portuguese firms invest in Luanda hotel ventures 2008-12-04 Luanda, Angola, 4 Dec - Six Portuguese companies are investing in a project to build high-end hotels in Luanda in undertakings worth more than 30 million euros, state news agency Angop has reported. Construction firm Teixeira Duarte is building the Hotel Baia, an 18-storey complex with 144 rooms in the Angolan capital. VIP Hotels is preparing to open the Hotel Skyna Vip Inn in June 2009, a three-star establishment with 236 rooms. VIP Hotels plans to open the VIP Grand Luanda Hotel and Spa in 2010, a five-star hotel that will form part of the Commandante Gika undertaking in Luanda’s Alvalade district. This building will have 300 rooms and 70 suites, as well as a spa, casino and congress center. Soares da Costa, meanwhile, has invested 14 million euros in the Sana Luanda Royal Hotel with 219 rooms and 69 suites, expected to open its doors in 2009.
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Brazil: China resumes direct import of chicken 2008-12-04 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 4 Dec - China has authorized resumption of direct imports of organic chicken from Brazil, the Agriculture Ministry announced Wednesday. Until the present day China imported Brazilian chicken via Hong Kong. The official Brasilia statement said China has authorized 24 slaughterhouses in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Parana, Sao Paulo, Mato Grosso Sul, Mato Grosso and Minas Gerais. Francisco Turra, chairman of the Brazilian Association of Chicken Producers and Exporters (Abef), said the Chinese move was important due to the size of the market involved and could also open up new export opportunities. Brazil is also finalizing deals on pork exports to China, the main importer of Brazilian agricultural and meat products.
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Brazil: Huawei revises 2009 growth targets 2008-12-03 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 3 Dec - A possible reduction in investment by telecoms firms has led the Brazilian subsidiary of China’s Huawei to revise its targets for 2009, the firm’s marketing director has said in Sao Paulo. Huawei, which will have been operating in Brazil for 10 years next year, posted turnover of 300 million reais in 2006, doubling to 600 million reais the following year and expected to grow by over 66 percent this year to a billion reais. Huawei’s marketing director, Marcelo Motta, said although telecoms firms say they will maintain investments in 2009, strong rumors suggest this will not be the case, so his company has decided to revise its 2009 forecasts. Huawei signed a deal with the government of Espirito Santo state at the end of last year to invest 10 billion reais in a new plant. But due to high demand for 3G cell phones, building of this factory has been delayed and equipment ordered instead from Flextronics of Sorocaba in Sao Paulo state. Motta said there was insufficient time to respond to this year’s demand surge, adding the company still has the land in Espirito Santo but is studying whether to proceed with construction of the plant.
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Mozambique: New laws for employment of foreign workers 2008-12-03 Maputo, Mozambique, 3 Dec - Taking on of overseas workers has become dependent on the size of companies under the terms of a decree-law approved Tuesday by Mozambique’s government, the Maputo newspaper Noticias has reported. The law defines three company levels, setting down a 5 percent limit of total workers for large firms, 8 percent for medium ones and 10 percent for small companies, Noticias said, adding the final decision on employment of foreigners under the Labor Law rests with the respective minister. These contracts have a maximum period of two years and are renewable. Government spokesperson Luis Covane said the fixing of quotas is primarily aimed at discouraging excessive employment of foreign labor to allow Mozambique to train quality skilled staff in large numbers. But when there are national labor shortages in some sectors, suitably qualified overseas workers can be taken on.
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Brazil: Agreement between China and Brazil to make pork trade easier 2008-12-02 Brasilia, Brazil, 2 Dec – The governments of Brazil and China are due this week to ratify a protocol that will make trade of pork meat easier between the two countries, the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture said in Brasilia Monday. The Ministry said that the secretary of state for Agri-farming Defence, Inacio Kroetz, is heading up a mission that will be in Beijing until Thursday to meet with the authorities of the General Administration of Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China. The document outlines requirements for inspection, quarantine and veterinary health for pork meat exported and imported between the countries. “This protocol sets out the bases and guarantees for sanitary certification, required by the importing country,” Kroetz explained. The secretary of state is also due to take part in a meeting with the China Meat Association, whose members include meat exporters and importers. China is the first destination for Brazilian agri-business products and exports to the country are expected to rise by 81 percent in 2008, as compared to last year.
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Angola: Banco BIC wants to expand to DR of Congo and Namibia 2008-12-02 Luanda, Angola, 2 Dec – Chairman of Angolan bank, Banco Internacional de Crédito (BIC, Fernando Teles said in Luanda that the bank was preparing to operate in the markets of Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo after it recently set up in Portugal. “It is our intention to move ahead in those markets and we are preparing to invest in others. We are only not doing so now because we planned to give priority yo Angola where almost everything has yet to be done,” said Teles cited by newspaper Jornal de Angola. The chairman of Banco BIC, the third biggest bank in Angola, said that, “the bank is in contact with the authorities of the respective countries and the respective central banks.” With over 100 branches in Angola, throughout the year BIC saw deposits of over US$3.5 billion, whilst in terms of approved loans it totalled US$2.5 billion. The bank started operating in Angola in May 2005 and now has branches in all of the country’s 18 provinces. Around 50 percent of the bank’s branches are in Luanda.
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Angola: Portugal’s Logoplaste to open factory in Luanda 2008-12-01 Luanda, Angola, 1 Dec – Portuguese plastic packaging company Logoplaste plans to open a factory in Angola, at an investment of 5 million euros, said the company’s chairman, Filipe de Botton, cited by newspaper Jornal de Angola. The news comes on the eve of the inauguration by Europe’s third largest plastic packaging company of its first factory, in the Netherlands, in partnership with multinational food sector company, Heinz. “We are complying with all legal and administrative requirements to move ahead. We look at Angola with great fondness. We already have a plot of land that we bought near Luanda,” said Botton, who declined to give a deadline or investment value. Logoplaste currently exports pre-moulds – plastic moulds – to Angola, but wants to focus on production in Angola. IN fact, the idea is the same as the one behind the factory opened by the company, in Elst, the Netherlands, in partnership with Heinz. According to Botton, producing packaging near the customer is advantageous in terms of logistics, costs and environmental implications. The factory opened by Logoplaste in the Netherlands, some 150 kilometres from Amsterdam, represents and investment of 25 million euros to produce over 300 million technologicaly innovative packages per year for Heinz.
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Brazil: Bank of China to open Sao Paulo branch in March 2009 2008-12-01 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1 Dec - The Bank of China is due to open its first office in Brazil in March of 2009, according to newspaper China Daily. Zhang Jianhua, director general of the bank, cited by the paper, said that the decision to start operating in Barzil had been taken last year and authorised by Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the beginning of November. The bank, which is headquartered in Beijing, plans to open a branch in Sao Paulo under the name Banco da China Brasil, which will focus on corporate finance and foreign exchange. The nominal capital of Banco da China Brasil will be US$60 million. The subsidiary in Brazil will be the bank’s first in Latin America.
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Angola: Chinese company refurbishes and extends Mbanza Congo aerodrome in northern Angola 2008-11-28 Mbanza Congo, Angola, 28 Nov – Chinese company China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) is carrying out refurbishment and extension work on the Mbanza Congo aerodrome, in Zaire province, Angolan news agency Angop reported. According to the contractor, engineer Yang Mengxue, the work, budgeted to cost US$10 million, is due to be concluded within six months, after which teh aerodrome will be able to receive the new Boeing 737-800 and 777-2000 aircraft of Angolan airline Taag. The runway will be extended to 2730 metres in length, as compared to its current 1,800 metres, and widened to 45 metres, which is 15 metres more than it current width. Yang also said that recycling work would be carried out, as well as building of access routes, parking bays and replacement of the asphalt and signage on the airport apron.
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China: Tender for construction of Macau-Zhuhai-Hong Kong bridge launched in December 2008-11-28 Macau, China, 28 Nov – The coordinating group for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge has decided to launch the tender for the US$5 billion project in December, according to Thursday’s edition of Hong Kong newspaper, the South China Morning Post. The paper added that the secretary for Transport and Housing of Hong Kong, Eva Cheng Yu-wah, said in Guangzhou, after a meeting with the coordinating group, that the governments of Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau had decided to launch the bridge’s construction project at the beginning of 2009. "The coordinating group will launch a tender for the design and construction of the bridge. At the same time, the Guangdong government will present its final documents to the central government in December for final approval,” the secretary said. Eva Cheng Yu-wah added that she hoped the design of the project could begin in April 2009. The project has been under discussion for several years and this year the governments of Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau decided to fund construction of the bridge. Under the terms of the agreement reached by the three government, Hong Kong will pay for 50.2 percent of the project, Guangdong 35.1 percent and Macau 14.7 percent.
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China: Zhuhai government wants to transform port of Gaolan into largest in southeast China 2008-11-27 Zhuhai, China, 27 Nov – The government of the city of Zhuhai plans to reclaim 62 square kilometres of land from the sea to increase the size of the port of Gaolan and provide more land to develop high technology and high added value industries according to Macau Monitor, which is distributed by news agency MacauNews. "The city of Zhuhai is investing strongly in the port of Gaolan, which has a depth of 15.2 metres, with the construction of two container docks and an annual capacity to process 800,000 containers and, later, with the construction of a further two terminal with a 100,000 container capacity,” according to Macau Monitor. By 2011 the government wants to turn the Gaolan cargo port into the biggest container terminal in the western area of the Pearl River Delta, with an annual capacity of 2.3 million TEU in order to become the preferential destination for exports to Europe and the United States, replacing Hong Kong and becoming the biggest port in southeast China. The Zhuhai authorities, according to Macau Monitor, plan for the city to be on the same level as Zhongshan, Foshan and Dongguan, which are important centres of trade and industry in Guangdong province. The land to be reclaimed in Gaolan is twice the area of the Administrative Region of Macau. As well as the bridge that will link it to Hong Kong and Macau, costing 42 billion yuan, as of 2009 Zhuhai will have a light railway link and two years later a railway link to the city of Guangzhou. With an area of 1,700 square kilometres, Zhuhai has a population of 1.45 million people and its main economic activities are agriculture and forestry, as well the electronics, petrochemical and precision machinery industries. In 2007 Zhuhai received 7.58 million visitors, a rise of 3.9 percent in relation to 2006. In the first nine months of 2008 foreign investment in Zhuhai totalled US$1.28 billion, or 19.5 percent less than in the same period of 2007.
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Angola: South Korea’s Exim Bank grants funding to Angola 2008-11-26 Luanda, Angola, 26 Nov – Angola is to build a complex to process fowl, with an investment of US$49 million in the province of Malange, said the country’s Foreign Relations minister, George Chicoty. According to Angolan newspaper, Jornal de Angola, construction of the complex will be funded by South Korea, as part of a deal signed in Luanda between the two countries. Under the terms of the deal in which Chicoty represented Angola and ambassador Han Jae-Young represented South Korea, Angola will benefit from funding of US$49 million from the Export-Import Bank of that Asian country, an amount which may be totally applied to building the complex. Chicoty and Han Jae-Young signed another agreement to move ahead with projects for funding from the Fund for Cooperation for Economic Development for 2008 and 2009, to the value of US$130 million. South Korea’s EximBank has so far provided Angola with US$124 million to fund four different projects in the country.
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Brazil: Brazilian mission travels to China and Singapore to discuss agri-business 2008-11-25 Brasilia, Brazil, 25 Nov – A delegation from the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Farming and Supply is due Tuesday in Singapore to begin a 10-day visit that will also include Hong Kong and China, with a view to boosting bilateral trade. The mission, which includes representatives of the secretariats for International Relations of Agri-Business and Defence of Agri-Farming, will be accompanied by businesspeople from the food sector. The delegation also plans to deal with the issue of sanitary and fito-sanitary agreements between Brazil and China. In Shanghai the mission is due to visit Food & Hotel China (FHC 2008), the most important international trade fairs for imported food and beverages. China is the main destination of exports for Brazilian agri-business products. The forecast this year is that China will increases its agri-farming imports by 81 percent this year. From January to October this year Brazilian agri-business exports to Singapore totalled US$285 million. In rleation to Hong Kong Brazil’s exports of agri-business products rose over 20 percent, particularly pork, beef and fowl exports.
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Macau: Inflation in Macau totals 8.65 percent in October 2008-11-24 Macau, China, 24 Nov - The inflation rate in Macau was 8.65 percent in October, a month in which prices rose 0.35 percent against September, the region's Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) said Friday. The DSEC said that compared with October of 2007, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 8.82 percent, with rises in the classes of food and non-alcoholic drinks (17.72 percent), health (14 percent) and clothing and footwear (7.41 percent), respectively. The Bureau also highlighted the monthly rise (October compared to September) in prices in the classes of clothing and footwear (1.61 percent), food and non-alcoholic drinks (1.27 percent) and housing and fuel (0.49 percent). According to the DSEC, in the first 10 months of the year Macau's CPI rose 8.98 percent against the same period of 2007.
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Brazil: Espírito Santo state expects to do more business with China 2008-11-24 Vitória, Brazil, 24 Oct – A Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo expects a substantial rise in business with China over the next few months due to the establishment of a steelmaking project in the city of Anchieta in a joint project of China’s Baosteel and Brazil’s Vale. Carlos Eiras, teh chairman of the Brazil-China Chamber in Espírito Santo said that the Brazilain state expected, "business to increase, with the export of products such as coffee, chocolate, sugar cane rum, pork meat and rocks." "Trade between Brazil and china rose 65 percent between January and October of this year against the same period of 2007 and projections point to growth continuing,” Eira said. He added that there was enormous potential to attract Chinese investment to the area of infrastructures in Espírito Santo and noted that, “the Bank of China has US$400 billion to invest outside of China.” Setting up the Baosteel CSV steelmaking plant represents an initial investment of US$5 billion and is expected to create 3,000 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs. The state government set up the Anchieta hub, where the facility is expected to be built, not only for this project, but also for a Petrobras gas processing plant, a fourth plant for Samarco Mineração, a railway line and a deep water port. The government is currently looking into the environmental impact study for the Anchieta hub projects and by the end of the year a portfolio on the subject is due to be concluded, which will make it possible to grant environmental licenses for each of the projects.
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Macau: More than 25 million tourists visit Macau in first ten months of 2008 2008-11-24 Macau, China, 24 Nov – Around 25.1 million visitors entered Macau in the first ten months of the year, which was a rise of 14.5 percent on the same period of 2007 when 21.9 million people visited the territory, MacauNews reported Friday. The director of the Macau Tourism Office, João Manuel Costa Antunes said Thursday that in 2008 a total of around 30 million tourists were expected to visit Macau, or 3 million more than in 2007. According to MacauNews, which cited the region’s Statistics and Census Bureau, the greatest number of tourists was from Mainland China, accounting for 14.6 million people, a rise of 21.9 percent against the same period of 2007 when 12 million Chinese tourists visited the region. According to Macau’s official figures in the first ten months of the year Macau welcomed 6.79 million tourists from Hong Kong, 1.1 million tourists from Taiwan and 1.2 million from Southeast Asia. Most of the tourists – 15.7 million – arrived in Macau through the land border and 7.9 percent arrived by sea, mainly from Hong Kong. In October alone 2.6 million tourists travelled to Macau, a rise of 8 percent against the same month of 2007. 1.5 million of these were from China, which represented a fall of 25.9 percent against October 2007.
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Angola: Banco Africano de Investimentos opens subsidiary in Cape Verde 2008-11-24 Praia, Cape Verde, 24 Nov – Angolan bank Banco Africano de Investimentos (BAI) Friday opened a subsidiary in the city of Praia, Cape Verde, as part of its internationalisation strategy, for which it is already present in Portugal via BAI Europa. BAI Cabo Verde, which has starting capital of 90 million euros, are BAI Angola, with a 70 percent stake, Angolan oil company Sonangol, with 19 percent, and Cape Verdean company Sogei, with 10 percent. The bank plans to target the corporate and private banking sectors. BAI Cabo Verde is headquartered in Praia, the archipelago’s capital, and this year plans to open branches in Mindelo and on Sal Island. According to the chairman of the BAI Cabo Verde Executive Commission, David Jasse, over the nest six months, 30 percent of the capital is to be sold to Cape Verdean investors and BAI Angola will keep 51 percent and Sonangol 9 percent. The launch of BAI Cabo Verde coincides with Banco Africano de Investimentos 12th anniversary, as it was founded on 14 November 1996. In Angola BAI currently has at least 180,000 customers across a network of 53 branches. In 2007 it posted net assets of US$3.7 billion, and was considered to be the biggest bank operating in the Angolan market.
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Angola: Portugal is springboard for expansion of relations with Europe 2008-11-24 Luanda, Angola, 24 Nov – The nomination of Assunção dos Anjos, ex-Angolan ambassador in Lisbon, to the post of Foreign Affairs Minister is seen as a means of strengthening relations with Portugal and thus with Europe. Anjos established in Portugal a network of relations and influences considered vast, and before that he was the ambassador in Madrid and Paris, also maintaining important contacts in the UK and Belgium, according to the Africa Monitor Newsletter. Known for his affability and good manners, the successor to João Miranda is also highly trusted by Angolan president, José Eduardo dos Santos, and is seen as the “right man” for the current phase of Portuguese-Angolan relations, in which close economic relations “bind” Lisbon and Luanda. Through state-owned oil company, Sonangol, Luanda has attracted important Portuguese companies from the sectors of finance (Millennium BCP, the biggest private bank, with a strong international presence) and energy (Galp Energia, involved in oil refining and trade as well as oil exploration in Angola and Brazil, where it is involved in the promising pre-salt reservoirs in Bacia de Santos). After the elections the files were closed on the so-called Angolanization of the stake of Portuguese capital in Angola, with the entry of Sonangol and Banco Privado Atlantico into Millennium Angola and Unitel of Banco Fomento Angola into the BPI group – both with direct or indirect stakes not far short of 50 percent. At the same time, Angola has become the main destination for Portuguese exports outside the EU, even overtaking the US, immediately decisive for economic growth and it is also increasingly important as a source for Portuguese oil imports. According to Africa Monitor, it is through this growth in mutual economic interests that Angola is looking to develop influences that would make of Lisbon and close relations with the Portuguese authorities, a springboard for promoting a more positive image of the country within Europe. Angolan president, José Eduardo dos Santos, has assumed the role of promoter of Angola on an international scale, requiring its affirmation in key areas around the world. Until now, this affirmation has been more visible in Africa, particularly in military and diplomatic intervention in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, but also in the political process in Zimbabwe. He has also promoted Angolan interests in the strategic Gulf of Guinea region, which has made Sao Tome and Principe an economic and political base. The Community for Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) arena will be another opportunity for Angolan diplomatic activity, following a reinforcement of economic and political interests in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. In 2010, in Luanda, the CPLP presidency will be handed over by Portugal.
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Brazil: Embratur present at tourism fair in China 2008-11-21 Brasilia, Brazil, 21 Nov – The Brazilian Tourism Institute (Embratur) is for the third time taking part in the China International Travel Mart (CITM), in Shanghai, in order to boost promotion of Brazilian tourist destinations in China. CITM, which this year will run from Thursday until next Sunday, and is one of the most important tourism sector fairs in Asia and Embratur plans to use it to support Chinese tourism professionals to sell Brazilian destinations. Between 2004 and 2007 the number of Chinese tourists travelling to Brazil rose 44 percent to 23,490 people in 2007.
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Brazil: China and Hong Kong main importers of Brazilian leather 2008-11-20 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 20 Nov – Brazilian lether exports totalled US$1.68 billion from January to October, a year on year fall of 8 percent, according to the Brazilian association for the leather tanning industry, CICB. Sales this year are expected to total US$2 billion, or US$500 million less than previous targets set. The devaluation of the dollar (until September) and high interest rates worsened by the international crisis were pointed to as the main factors for the fall in revenue from Brazilian leather exports. The main markets for Brazilian leather were China and Hong Kong, with 32 percent of total exports, followed by Italy with 27 percent. The state of Sao Paulo remainder the leather export leader, with 31 percent of the total and Rio Grande do Sul was placed second with 26.6 percent of the total.
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Angola: Lufthansa plans to increase presence in Angola 2008-11-20 Lisbon, Portugal, 20 Dec – German airline Lufthansa has been in contact with the Angolan authorities to be granted authorisation to launch an additional flight between Luanda and Frankfurt, due to the success of the existing flight, the airline's vice president for European Sales and Services said Wednesday in Lisbon. At a meeting with journalists, Karsten Benz said that "there is potential yp increase Lufthansa’s presence in Angola,” as teh weekly flights to Luanda, “are a success,” with a load factor of around 80 percent. "We are in talks with the [Angolan] authorities to have an extra flight between Frankfurt and Luanda,” he said, Adding that the German airline was interested in boosting cooperation with the local authorities. The success of the flights between the two countries was linked, he said, not only to the Angolan passenger market, but also to the business segment, related to the Angolan oil sector. Benz said that 2008 was a year of success for Lufthansa, with the company growing and increasing its capacity by number of routes, offering 11 new destinations, although it noted that the first quarter had not met expectations. This year the company expects to achieve an operating profit of 1.1 billion euros, as compared to 1.4 billion in 2007.
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Mozambique: China provides funding of US$42.2 million to Mozambique 2008-11-19 Maputo, Mozambique, 19 Nov - China and Mozambique Tuesday in Maputo signed threde funding agreements, one of which is worth 129 million yuan (around US$18 million) and is aimed at agricultural development in the Zambezi valley. Signed by Mozambican finance minister, Manuel Chang and by the Chinese ambassador to Mozambique, Tian Guangfeng, the second agreement to the value of 150 million yuan (around US$21.4 million) is for construction of the National Stadium, a venue to host large national and international sports events. A third agreement was also signed to the value of 20 million yuan (around US$2.8 million) in the form of a donation from the Chinese government to fund projects as yet to be defined by both sides. At the end of the ceremony to sign the agreements Chang said that the funding for agriculture in the Zambezi valley “has come at the exact right time, considering that we are putting into place a plan of action for food production.” In relation to the second agreement, Chang said it was a continuation of the Chinese funding that had been provided to build the National Stadium. “We have had three agreements and this is the fourth in the list of staged funding for this project, work on which has already begun and are scheduled to finish next year,” the finance minister said. China has funded the construction and refurbishment of important infrastructures in Mozambique, including the Republican Assembly, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and the Joaquim Chissano Conference Centre.
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Mozambique: African Development Bank grants funding of US$93 million 2008-11-19 Maputo, Mozambique, 19 Nov – The African Development Bank (ADB) has granted Mozambique a loan of US$93 million to fund the second programme to support poverty reduction (PARPA II) in the 2008-2010 period, Mozambican newspaper Notícias reported. The funding agreement was signed in Maputo by the minister for Planning and Development, Aiuba Cuereneia, and the ADB representative to Mozambique, Alice Hamer. The conditions of the loan, according to Cuereneia, relate to meeting the targets set by the government in partnership with the ADB for the areas of governance, combating corruption and poverty as a whole. The funds will be provided in three tranches of US$30 million each via the State Budget, with a 20-year repayment period. According to the ADB representative in Mozambique, the agreed loan is part of the support the institution has been providing to Mozambique’s strategy to reduce poverty, and should be seen in the context of the other projects funded by the bank, to a total value of US$620 million. The ADB has been working in Mozambique since 1977 and has thus far applied US$1.7 billion to 71 projects in the country.
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Brazil: Globo TV network launches programme for Portuguese-speaking African countries 2008-11-18 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 18 Nov – Brazilian television network, Rede Globo is due soon to launch a programme aimed at audiences in Portuguese-speaking African countries, Brazil’s biggest TV company said. The “Revista África” programme, created by TV Globo Internacional, will be co-produced by independent Angolan producer, Promoangol. The programme will be an electronic cultural review show with reports shot in Angola and Mozambique, presented by Miss Angola, Lesliana Pereira. Angola currently has the largest number of subscribers to TV Globo Internacional, with 150,000 of a total 500,000 foreign viewers who pay to watch the TV company’s programmes. This will be the third exclusive programme for the international channel, following the series, “Planeta Brasil” produced in New York and “Cá Estamos” focused on the Portuguese community that watches TV Globo Portugal.
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Angola: Population expected to total 44.6 million in 2050 2008-11-18 Lisbon, Portugal, 18 Nov – The Angolan population is expected to grow from 17.5 million to 44.6 million by 2050, according to a study fro the United Nations Population Fund presented this week in Lisbon. The study showed that the seven States of the Community of Portuguese-speaking countries (CPLP), would all see a rise in population by 2050, with the exception of Portugal, which would see its population fall. For Portugal the UN fund estimates that the population could fall from 10.7 million to 10 million in the period. Guinea Bissau is expected to see population growth, from 1.7 million to 5.3 million and East Timor from 1.2 million to 3.5 million inhabitants. In 2050, according to the study, Mozambique will have 39.1 million inhabitants, as compared to 21.8 million currently, and Cape Verde will have 1 million inhabitants, almost twice the current 540,000. Brazil, the most populous country in the CPLP, will see its population rise from 194.2 million currently, to 254.1 million. The UN report, which gives a Picture of the world population, does not provide figures for Sao Tome and Principe, whose current population is estimated at around 206,000 people. For 2008, the study points to mainly urban populations in Angola (57 percent), Cape Verde (60 percent), Portugal (59 percent) and Brazil (86 percent). In total, the CPLP is expected to have a further 110 million inhabitants in 2050 than it currently has, taking its total population to 357 million.
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Mozambique: Brazil and Mozambique cooperate in telecommunications sector 2008-11-17 Maputo, Mozambique, 17 Nov – The scientific development of telecommunications is due to be driven forward over the next three years, with the launch of bilateral cooperation between the two sector regulators from Mozambique and Brazil, according to a report in Mozambican newspaper Notícias. The paper said that a memorandum of understanding had been signed a few days ago between the Instituto Nacional das Comunicações de Moçambique (INCM) and Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anatel), of Brazil, marking the start of a new era. The cooperation will cover the areas of projects, convergence of services, economic regulation, new low-cost international roaming technologies, as well as the efficient use of bandwidth and certification of telecommunications equipment, amongst other areas. Salomão Manhiça, president of the INCM, noted the importance this relationship would have for both sides, saying that this was the second agreement between the two institutions, the first of which was signed in 2001. He noted that the Mozambican technicians could be trained in Brazil and that missions would likely be organised to exchange knowledge and experiences, which would strengthen both institutions and improve their performance.
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Angola: UE extends ban on flying in Europe to all Angolan airlines 2008-11-17 Brussels, Belgium, 17 Nov – The European Union (EU) Friday confirmed it had extended its ban on flying in Europe to all of Angola’s airlines, which had so far covered only TAAG, due to “serious safety problems.” The Commission said that, “these serious safety problems,” which were detected by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in its audit report last October, “remain unsolved and affect the safety of the activities of all Angolan airlines." The main reason behind the decision is difficulties in the restructuring of Angola’a National Civil Aviation Institute (Inavic) and its inability to correct the air safety problems detected. In a statement issued in Brussels, the Commission said it had updated its blacklist of carriers banned from European airspace. The ninth version of the blacklist includes a total ban on flying to Europe by airlines from Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as Gabon, with the exceptions of Gabon Airlines and Afrijet. On 4 July 2007, Brussels announced that Taag has been added to its blacklist of airlines banned from flying in Europe, for reasons of lack of safety, after the Air Safety Committee, a week before, had unanimously approved that decision.
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China: Portuguese-speaking countries want greater economic and business communication with Beijing 2008-11-17 Macau, China, 17 Nov – Portuguese-speaking countries are focussed on improving economic and business communication with Beijing, via the Forum Macau, which they see as strengthening relations between China and the Portuguese-speaking world. The overall positive balance and the promise of greater future efforts came from the Session on Mutual Investment between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, organized in September by the Forum Macau, which recently published the speeches made by the participants. Delegates from the Portuguese-speaking world were in Xiamen, in Fujian province, to participate in the 12th China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT). Humberto Santos de Brito, secretary of state for the Cape Verde Economy, made one of the strongest appeals for Chinese investment and a strategic partnership between the two countries, with the transformation of Cape Verde into a “secure and competitive platform for the entry of Chinese products into West Africa, as well as the provision of services to the Chinese fishing and mercantile fleets in the Atlantic.” “We make no secret of our desire to host one of the Chinese Economic Cooperation Zones in S. Vicente, as we already have a well developed and expanding industrial zone and we are seeking partnerships for the building a port in the deep waters of the bay as part of a project which includes the construction of a Free-trade Zone," said the Cape Verdian minister. For Guinea Bissau’s minister for Trade, Industry, Energy and Craft , business development is fundamental for the country’s economic recuperation, but also an opportunity to access the West African market with around 265 million consumers. “The creation of business opportunities, trade promotion, the valuation of the potential in agricultural, industrial and tourism sectors (...) promote the employment of Guinean families particularly our young people and managers,” said the Guinean minister, focussed on returning home with some firm business partnerships. Mozambique was represented by the Trade and Industry Ministry’s General Inspector, Jose Rodolfo, who highlighted areas with the biggest potential for “immediate exploration,” namely minerals, energy and agricultural, fisheries and water resources, among others. “Mozambique is the ideal entrance point for the southern region of Africa with its extensive rail and port network serving the hinterland, where Chinese investments are beginning to take shape and we are certain that they will be expanded into infrastructure construction, industry establishment and agricultural sectors," he said. Edson Lupatini Junior, Trade and Services Secretary for Brazil’s Ministry of Overseas Development, Industry and Trade, emphasized the growth in economic and trade relations with China and recalled the Brazilian government's creation of the China Agenda, which brings together private sector representatives of both countries and the respective government officials in ongoing dialogue. “The commercial ties already in place between Portuguese-speaking countries and China should serve as an incentive for government institutions to promote investments, strengthen economic cooperation and increase commercial exchange between these countries,” he said. Jiang Zengwei, China’s vice-Trade Minister said that the target for trade growth with Portuguese-speaking countries, as set out in the Trade and Economic Cooperation Action Plan, should be more than met in 2008. “The creation of Forum Macau is necessary for the development of cooperation and is the result of the wisdom of participating countries, and it is hoped that this valuable mechanism will be esteemed by everyone so that mutual advantages and benefits can be secured, opening a new era of development and cooperation in the context of Forum Macau," he added.
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China: Trade with Portuguese-speaking countries exceeds US$61 billion in first nine months 2008-11-14 Macau, China, 14 Nov – Trade between China and the Portuguese-speaking countries from January to September 2008 totalled US$61.557 billion, a rise of 92.4 percent against the same period of 2007, according to China’s Customs Bureau. Cited by the Support Office to the Permanent Secretariat for the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, the figures showed that trade between China and the Portuguese-speaking had significantly exceeded the target set for trade in 2009 (US$50 billion)set at the 2nd Ministerial Conference of the Forum. The value of trade in the first nine months of the year also exceeded trade for the whole of 2007 (US$46.353 billion), and with this rate of grwoth it is expected that trade will exceed US$75 billion by the end of the current year. China’s imports from Portuguese-speaking countries totalled US$42.672 billion, a rise of 95.4 percent against the same period of 2007, whilst China’s exports to Portuguese-speaking countries totalled US$18.885 billion, a rise of 86.1 percent, against the same period of 2007.
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China: Construction of Macau-Zhuhai-Hong Kong bridge begins in 2009 2008-11-13 Beijing, China, 13 Nov – The Chinese deputy minister for the National Commission for Reform and Development, Zhang Xiaoqiang, said Wednesday in Beijing that provided all went as planned, construction of the Macau-Zhuhai-Hong Kong bridge would begin at the start of 2009. In an interview with the Hong Kong and Macau press, Zhang, cited by the People’s daily newspaper, said that the departments involved were currently making adjustments and improvements to the feasibility study, mainly focused on financial aspects. As soon as the document is submitted to the Commission it will be examined without delay, the deputy minister said, adding that if its is approved it would be submitted to the Council of State for approval. After the feasibility study is approved, Zhang said, design and preparation for construction of the bridge could begin. In August Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong reached a deal on funding for construction of the bridge between the three regions with mainland China bearing most of the cost of the project, expected to cost US$5 billion. After a meeting in Guangzhou between Hong Kong and Guangdong, Donald Tsang, the chief executive of the Hong Kong government, said that the bridge would be funded to a total of 7 billion yuan by Guangdong province, whilst Hong Kong will pay 6.75 billion yuan and Macau 1.98 billion yuan. The overall investment from the three governments – 15.73 billion yuan – accounts for 42 percent of the total cost of the project. The remaining investment will be funded by bank loans and private investment. The y-shaped bridge between Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai, has an estimated cost of 40 billion yuan. The bridge will have six lanes, be between 30 and 35 kilometres long and be built as a combination of bridges and tunnels in order to keep navigation channels open. At the two ends of the bridge two artificial islands are to be built from which Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau will be accessed.
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Brazil: Bank of China authorised to start operating in Brazil 2008-11-13 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 13 Nov – The Bank of China has been granted permission to open in Brazil and is expected to start operating at the beginning of 2009, said China’s ambassador to Brazil, Chen Duqing, cited by news agency Estado. On the sidelines of the event, “The financial crisis and its effects on Brazil and in China,” held at the Federation of Trade in the State of Sao Paulo, the ambassador said that the decree authorising the Bank of China to do business in Brazil was signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last Friday. Chen said that authorisation for the bank to operate in Brazil was requested in August 2007 and, due to a delay in getting that authorisation, the ambassador admitted he had encouraged the Bank of China to acquire Brazilian banks in order to expand its business into Brazil. According to the president of the Brazil-China Chamber for Economic Development Sao Paulo (CBCDE), Paul Liu, the main objective of the Bank of China will be to provide credit to Chinese companies interested in operating in Brazil. Another Chinese institution interested in increasing its business in Brazil is the Development bank of China, the ambassador said. The bank already has a representative Office in Brazil, is funding two construction projects and is seeking opportunities for the construction of large infrastructures, such as ports, railways and energy.
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Brazil: Chinese group to build vehicle assembly line in Rio Grande do Sul 2008-11-12 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 12 Nov - Hero Motors, the Brazilian subsidiary of Chinese group Nanjing Yinghao Vehicle Manufacturing Company, in the second half of 2009 plans to begin construction of its first assembly line in Brazil. Located in the city fo Rolante, in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the Hero Motors assembly line, will produce light passenger vehicles and other electric vehicles. Next week the board of the Chinese company plans to choose which vehicles will be built in Brazil, after which ten units will be imported into Brazil for commercial and technical assessment. The group has a 50,000 square metre factory in Nanjing, where it produces electric cars, petrol engine vehicles, motorcycles and trikes, and has government authorisation to manufacture and sell outside China. State legislation for Rio Grande do Sul provides tax breaks for electrical cars, which makes it easier to produce them in that state.
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Angola: Trade with China exceeds US$14 billion between January and September 2008-11-11 Beijing, China, 11 Nov – Trade between Angola and China in the first nine months of 2008 has already exceeded US$14 billion, Angolan ambassador João Manuel Bernardo said Monday in Beijing. At a press conference to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of Angola’s independence, the Angolan ambassador in Beijing said that of bilateral trade over 80 percent was Angolan oil imported by China. Over the last four years Angola has become one of China’s largest suppliers of oil and the amount of credit granted by China to the West African country totals US$4.5 billion. The Angolan ambassador also announced that since the beginning of the year the Angolan embassy had issued 40,000 visas, made up of 5,000 working visas and the remainder short stay visas, confirming the increase in relations between the countries. Bernardo also said that, “there are many Chinese working on the national reconstruction,” of his country, namely the, “reconstruction of roads and schools,” but did not give precise figures. "Cooperation with Angola is at a very good level (..) There are Chinese in all 18 provinces of Angola, but I don’t know exactly how many,” he said.
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Angola: Direct flights between Luanda and Beijing begin next weekend 2008-11-11 Beijing, China, 11 Nov – Angolan airline Taag is due next weekend to start regular flights from Luanda to Beijing, in order to attract the increasing number of travellers between the two capitals, an Angolan diplomatic source said Monday in Beijing. The flight will be direct, taking around 13 hours, and will be available twice a week and initially will be run on a charter basis. Thousands of Chinese work in Angola, particulalry in teh construction sector and “this year the Angolan Embassy in Beijing has issued 40,000 visas,” the embassy source told Portuguese news agency Lusa. Angola is one of China’s main economic partners in Africa, particularly because of oil, which accounts for around 80 percent of trade between the two countries. China and Angola established diplomatic relations in 1983, eight years after the independence of the former Portuguese colony, but these days cooperation between the two countries, “is at a very good level,” said the Angolan ambassador to Beijing, João Manuel Bernardo.
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Mozambique: Trade with China totals US$285 million in 2007 2008-11-10 Maputo, Mozambique, 10 Nov – Trade between Mozambique and China totalled US$285 million in 2007, an official from Mozambique’s Institute for Export Promotion (Ipex) told Macauhub. The source did not mention figures for 2006, but noted that the figure showed an eight-fold increase against trade between the two countries in 2001, when it totalled less than US$36 million. China imports from Mozambique various types of wood, which is produced in the centre and north of the East African country. China is the sixth-biggest supplier of foreign direct investment to the country, according to the Centre for Investment Promotion (CPI). China has several companies in Mozambique operating in various sectors, including construction.
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Brazil: Strategic study on China presented in Bahia 2008-11-10 Bahia, Brazil, 10 Nov – Brazilian export and investment promotion agency, APEX-Brasil, is organising a seminar in Salvador da Bahia Tuesday to present a Study on Business Opportunities in the Chinese Market to businesspeople and institutions in the northeast region of Brazil. Organised in partnership with Promo-Centro Internacional de Negócios da Bahia (FIEB) and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Brazil-China (CCIBC), the study details important aspects such as regional characteristics, customs and logistics procedures, Brazil/China trade, sectors with sales potential for the country, trade via Hong Kong and export of services, amongst others. Bahia’s tarde relations with China have grown over the last few years. According to information from Brazil’s Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Ministry, in 2006 the state sold US$330.017 million in goods and services to China, a figure which rose 73.12 percent in 2007, when Bahia exported US$571.334 million to China. The document showed that, with average annual growth of 9 percent and an emerging middle class estimated at 200 million consumers, China is now at the top of the markets considered to be a priority for Brazil in the strategy outlined by Apex-Brasil for the internationalisation of companies and attracting investment.. The country is the world’s second largest exporter, with a total of US$1.218 trillion in 2007, behind Germany, which exported US$1.327 trillion that year. Em termos de importações, a China ocupa a terceira posição. Importou 956 mil milhões em 2007, após os EUA (1,953 biliões de dólares) e Alemanha (1,059 biliões de dólares). China is currently the fourth-largest destination for Bahia’s foreign sales, behind the United States, Argentina and the Netherlands.
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Brazil: Pará state signs trade deal with Schezuan province 2008-11-10 Chengdu, China, 10 Nov – The goevrnor of the Brazilian state of Pará and the gopvernment of teh Chinese province of Schezuan Saturday in Chengdu signed a deal to set up partnerships in the foreign trade centre. According to the state’s news agency, the document will make for joint work between the State Secretariat for Development, Science and Technology (Sedect) and the Schezuan Commission of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), of the Chinese government. According to the acting governor of Schezuan province, Xiao Huang, there is great interest in Schezuan in boosting trade relations with Brazil and, particularly with Pará. Xiao noted that, last year, Chinese exports to Brazil rose 70 percent, this year posting a rise of 130 percent, and there was still room for further growth. The governor of Pará state, Ana Júlia Carepa, noted that Pará was the biggest producer of fish in Brazil, and had the capacity to export at least 70 percent of its total production.
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Macau: British companies urged to invest in Macau 2008-11-10 Macau, China, 10 Nov - British companies specialising in training, education and the environment are being encouraged to invest in Macau, according to Andrew Seaton, the British Consul-General to Hong Kong and Macau, cited by MacauNews. Speaking in Macau Friday, Seaton said despite the world economic crisis there were plenty of opportunities for British companies to set up businesses or invest in Macau. Seaton also noted that Asia was seen as an attractive proposition for European companies because there was still economic growth in the region. Seaton described the relationship between Britain and Macau as "very good" and said this had been strengthened by the success of the training camps held in Macau by the British Olympic and Paralympic teams prior to Beijing There are around 700 British citizens living in Macau and last year Britain exported 18 million pounds (225 million patacas) worth of goods to Macau. In return Macau exported 29 million pounds (364 million patacas) worth of goods to Britain, a 22 per cent increase from the previous year, with the majority of goods originating from the mainland. Meanwhile, the chairman of the British Business Association of Macao (BBAM) and general manager of the Macau branch of Citic Ka Wah Bank, Henry Brockman, told MacauNews that the number of British companies investing in Macau had increased dramatically over the past few years.
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Angola: All Angolan airlines banned from flying to Europe 2008-11-07 Brussels, Belgium, 7 Nov – The European Union (EU) is to extend its ban on flying in Europe to all of Angola’s airlines, which had so far covered only TAAG, a community official said Thursday in Brussels. The EU’s Air Safety Commission, which met between Monday and Wednesday in the Belgian capital, agreed to a proposal from the European Commission to add to the “black list” all Angolan companies that were not yet part of it. The European commissioner responsible for Transport, António Tanji Thursday notified the European parliament of the position taken by the European specialists and the parliament is due to give its opinion on the matter before the ban comes into effect “in the next few weeks.” The same source also told Portuguese news agency Lusa that the EU had concluded that the safety problems found at Taag had not yet been corrected and that they were common to all air transport companies in Angola. According to a source from Eurocontrol, the European organisation responsible for air safety across the 27 member countries, Angola’s SonAir is the airline that carries out most flights into Europe. These are “non-scheduled” flights, mainly related to the transport of public figure to Europe. The list of Angola airlines, most of which only provide local or regional flights in Africa, are Aeronáutica, Aero Tropical, Air 26, Air Gemini, Alada, Angola Air Charter, Diexim Expresso, Planar, SAL and Transafrik International. On 4 July 2007, Brussels announced that Taag has been added to its blacklist of airlines banned from flying in Europe, for reasons of lack of safety, after the Air Safety Committee, a week before, had unanimously approved that decision.
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Mozambique: United States boost aid to Mozambique to US$450 million in 2010 2008-11-07 Maputo, Mozambique, 7 Nov – The US business attaché to Mozambique, Todd Chapman, said that in 2010 aid to Mozambique via the United States’ Agency for International Development (USAID) would total US$450 million. Chapman said Wednesday at a press conference in Maputo that the change in leadership in the United States did not mean there would be a change in relations with Mozambique. Chapman denied that the international financial crisis would affect some aid packages from the US to Mozambique, arguing that, “even in the midst of the crisis we will do everything to maintain our support for development.” By the end of this year the US will have channelled US$325 million to Mozambique, and in 2009 that amount is expected to increase to US$350 million. The United States of America funds various development projects in Mozambique, including a line of over US$500 million (Millennium Challenge Account) aimed at building infrastructures in the north of Mozambique, which is considered to be the country's poorest region.
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Brazil: Foreign Affairs Ministry promotes business meetings with China and Singapore 2008-11-06 Brasilia, Brazil, 6 Nov – The 1st Asia-Brazil Business Roundtable, which plans to bring together businesspeople from Brazil, China nad Singapore, is due to take place in Brasília from 25 to 27 November, the Brazilian ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The business sectors for this meeting are, according to the ministry, agri-business/biofuels, real estate, logistics, infrastrutures, mining, technology, innovation and trading. On 25 November, the Singapore meeting is scheduled to take place, in which a committee from Singapore, headed up by prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, will include 20 representatives of the country’s biggest companies. On 26 November a series of conferences and debates on China, its culture and business climate are scheduled and on the following day business meetings are due to take place with the Chinese delegation. The meeting is supported by the ministry for Foreign Relations, Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and sponsored by Brazilian export and investment agency APEX-Brasil, amongst others.
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Angola: Sonangol and KBR sign deal to build Lobito refinery 2008-11-06 Luanda, Angola, 6 Nov – US company KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) is to draw up a blueprint for the Lobito refinery, a Sonaref project, under the terms of an agreement signed Wednesday in Luanda with state oil company Sonangol. Under the terms of the agreement, KBR shall also have the right to choose the companies that will build the Lobito refinery, which is estimated to cost around US$6.4 billion. At the end of the meeting, the director of the Sonaref project, Nelson Santana, noted that KBR was merely an institution contracted by concessionaire Sonangol to design the refinery and was not a partner in the cost of building the project. "The Sonaref project belongs only to Sonangol,” Santana told journalists. Construction of Sonaref may take four years and the project is projected to process 200,000 barrels of oil into derivatives for sale mainly in the Angolan market, with surplus production exported to the international market, particularly Africa. The refinery, which will be built 8 kilometres from the city of Lobito will be built in line with the environmental standards demanded by the World Bank.
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Brazil: Odebrecht to invest in oil exploration in Angola 2008-11-06 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6 Nov – The oil and gas unit of Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in 2009 plans to invest US$100 million in test drilling in an oil exploration block in Angola, the vice president of Odebrecht Oil & Gas Ltd, Miguel Gradin said. In an interview with US financial news agency Dow Jones, Gradin said that Odebrecht Oil & Gas would drill four wells in offshore block 16 in Angola, in which it has a 15 percent stake and which is surrounded by blocks containing recent discoveries and wells that already in production. Maersk Oil is the block’s operator with a 50 percent stake, whilst Angolan state oil company Sonangol has a 20 percent stake and Devon Energy owns the remaining 15 percent of the block. Gradin also said that Odebrecht remained interested in acquiring additional exploration and production concessions in Angola. Gradin noted that Angola was included in the expansion plans of Odebrecht Oil & Gas and that construction company Odebrecht employed around 30,000 people in the country, which has the Portuguese-language in common with Brazil.
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Mozambique: Brasil cooperates with Mozambique in biofuels sector 2008-11-05 Brasilia, Brazil, 5 Nov – The cooperation convention in the biofuels sector signed at the beginning of this year with the Mozambican government was approved by the Brazilian parliament and is now to be sent for the appreciation of the Federal Senate, according to news website Portugal Digital. According to the Brazilian government, the agreement outlines exchange of experiences and knowledge of the sector and is part of Brazil’s strategy to encourage the use of biofuels in otehr countries. The project’s relator at the Commission for the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship, member of parliament José Genoíno, of the Workers’ Party, said that the aim of the convention was to promote cooperation and technical interchange in the biofuel sector. The text outlines that the two countries will exchange technical and business missions, draw up projects to train a workforce in the African country and identify partnerships with other countries and international organisations interested in supporting specific projects to produce biofuels in Mozambique.
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Angola: Brazil’s Camargo Corrêa to continue investing in Angola 2008-11-05 Luanda, Angola, 5 Nov – Brazilian construction company Camargo Corrêa plans to invest US$2 million over the next few months in partnership with Escom Imobiliária, of Portuguese Group Espírito Santo, according to Jornal de Angola. Rodrigo Santato told the newspaper that the partnership planned to hand over to customers an eight-tower, 148 housing unit project, with areas ranging between 140 and 190 square metres. A second project for foreign and national companies planning to set up new headquarters is already underway, Santato said. With 70 years’ experience, the Camargo Corrêa group is responsible for several infrastructures in Brazil and is set up in 12 countries, with projects to build hydroelectric power plants.
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Cape Verde: Business Development and Innovation agency set up 2008-11-05 Praia, Cape Verde, 5 Nov – The Agency for Business Development and Innovation (ADEI), presented Tuesday in Praia, is aimed at supporting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and associations in boosting the competitiveness, according to news agency Inforpress. ADEI, which is responsible to the Ministry for the Economy, Growth and competitiveness, has been given the autonomy to support innovation and development of creative programmes that contribute to development of the private sector. ADEI promotes the formulation and implementation of policies, equipping the private sector, making access to funding easier and developing programmes that minimise credit constraints within the sector. The development of initiatives to improve competitiveness of natinal companies, company incubators, production, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and improvement of innovative practices and the promotion of companies and businesses in the areas of information and communication technology are also on the list of the new institution’s responsibilities.
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Brazil: Brazilian perfume company O Boticário wants to open store in Macau 2008-11-05 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 5 Nov – Brazilian perfume company O Boticário may open up a store in Macau following its participation in the territory’s international fair, in October, Brazilian export promotion agency Apex said Tuesday. The director of O Boticário, Roberto Neves, was analyising a proposal presented by the board of the Venetian hotel, Apex said in a statement. O Boticário, which has headqusrters in Curitiba, is the biggest cosmetics and perfume franchise chain in the world. The company, which was founded in 1977, has over 2,400 stores in Brazil and is present in 20 countries. Apex was responsible for Brazil’s participation in the Macau International Fair (MIF). Another Brazilian company, Global Franchise, which also attended MIF representing several brands signed a sales protocol for a concession of a Habib’s restaurant (Arab food) in China, including Macau and Hong Kong. The Habib’s food chain, which is Brazil’s biggest fast food chain, was set up by Portuguese businessman Alberto Saraiva. With hundreds of stores spread across Brazil, Habib’s is considered to be the world’s biggest Arab food chain. In its first official participation at MIF, Apex was part of the Portuguese-speaking countries, with the presentation of vídeos and advertising materials about Brazil. For the 2009 edition of MIF, Apex Brasil plans to have a stronger presence, “with an area that will allow for a greater number of companies.”
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China: Brazil’s Embraer projects sale of 875 jets to China over next 20 years 2008-11-05 Zhuhai, China, 5 Nov - Brazil’s Embraer, the third largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, said Tuesday in Zhuhai it expected to sell 875 aircraft to China by 2028. At a press conference, Embraer said that the company, over the next 20 years expected to sell to China 120 30-60 passenger aircraft, 295 aircraft with a capacity of between 61 and 90 passengers, and 460 aircraft with a capacity of between 91 and 120 passengers. Embraer officials attending Airshow China 2008, held in Zhuhai, said that, “the air transport industry will continue to demand more fuel efficient and environmentally correct aircraft, which will further drive the aviation industry’s development in China.” The chairman of Embraer China, Guan Dongyuan, said meanwhile that “the announcement of prospects for the Chinese market at the country’s biggest and most influential aviation event shows the importance that Embraer gives to this market.” Embraer has already sold 38 aircraft to six Chinese airlines and has over 126 orders. In China Embraer sells ERJ 145 aircraft with a capacity for 30 to 50 passengers, and E-Jets with a capacity of between 70 and 120 passengers. Embraer has also sold executive jets to the Chinese market of the Phenom 100, Phenom 30, Legacy 450-500 and 600 and Lineage mdoels. In 2003, Embraer created a joint venture with Chinese companies Harbin Aircraft and Hafei Aviation Industry, which are both controlled by China Aviation Industry Corporation II. Harbin Embraer Aircraft, which is located in Harbin, capital of the province of Heilongjiang, produces aircraft for the Chinese market that are similar to the ones manufactured at the company’s headquarters in São José dos Campos, 90 kilometres from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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Mozambique: New refinery in southern Mozambique costs US$6.7 billion 2008-11-04 Maputo, Mozambique, 4 Nov – The district of Matutuíne, southern Mozambique, may be the location chosen for construction of a new oil refinery, with the capacity to process 350,000 barrels of oil per day, shareholder and chief executive of OilMoz Holding, Fausto Cruz said in Maputo Monday. Cruz said that construction of the refinery, valued at US$6.7 billion and which is now the subject of a feasibility study, was the result of a partnership between Shell and OilMoz. OilMoz’s shareholders are Fausto Cruz and Leonardo Simão, former Mozambican foreign minister and chief executive of the Joaquim Chissano Foundation. The Joaquim Chissano foundation, which has no stake in the project, will be responsible for the project’s social responsibility aspects, by carrying out community support initiatives in the Matutuíne district, where the refinery will be built, as well as training staff recruited for the project. The feasibility studies for the project will be carried out by multinational consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and by Mozambican oil company Petróleos de Moçambique (Petromoc). Construction of the refinery will begin in 2009 and end in 2013 and the project also includes construction of a petrochemical derivatives plant, a gas-fired power plant, a waste treatment plant, a fuel storage facility and a potential offshore port terminal to transport crude oil. In 2007, Ayr-Petro-Nacala, a subsidiary of US company Ayr Logistics also announced it planned to build an oil refinery in the port city of Nacala, in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, in northern Mozambique.
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Mozambique: Economic growth may slow in 2008, IMF says 2008-11-03 Washington, United States, 3 Nov – A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Mozambique has said that the country has already been affected by the rise in fuel and fuel prices and that that would lead to lower levels of economic growth in 2008. On a visit to Mozambique between 14 and 30 October, the IMF mission noted that the economy remained strong and basic inflation, which excludes food and energy, was below 3 percent, according to a statement published Thursday. However, when food an energy are included, the rates soars to over 10 percent and thus economic growth would be 6.5 percent, or less than the 7 percent growth posted in 2007, it said. the IMF mission, which travelled to Mozambique to assess the progress of the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) and to discuss the country’s economic reforms, concluded that all the programme’s targets had been reached and that significant progress had been made in management of public finances and improving operating capacity of the tax system. However, the mission warned that the country was not immune to the financial problems currently affecting the world economy and that Mozambique faced problems as a result of a fall in price of raw materials and the consequent fall in export revenues. Also according to the IMF mission, the “international financial crisis could affect the influx of capital as well as the fact that the Mozambican economy is still very dependent on contributions from the international community.”
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China: Brazils Embraer present at Airshow China 2008, in Zhuhai 2008-10-31 Zhuhai, China, 31 Oct – Brazilian aviation company Embraer said Thursday it would take part in the seventh edition of Airshow China 2008, which is due to be held from 4 to 9 November in Zhuhai, a Chinese municipality bordering Macau. The China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition (Airshow China) is the only event of its kind in China and has been held since 1996. Embraer has already sold 38 aircraft to six Chinese airlines and has over 126 orders. In China Embraer sells ERJ 145 aircraft with a capacity for 30 to 50 passengers, and E-Jets with a capacity of between 70 and 120 passengers. Embraer has also sold executive jets to the Chinese market of the Phenom 100, Phenom 30, Legacy 450-500 and 600 and Lineage mdoels. The chairman of Embraer China, Guan Dongyuan said that the “air transport market in China is the second largest in the world, after the United States, which is why the Brazilian company continues to focus on the region.” In 2003, Embraer created a joint venture with Chinese companies Harbin Aircraft and Hafei Aviation Industry, which are both controlled by China Aviation Industry Corporation II. Harbin Embraer Aircraft, which is located in Harbin, capital of the province of Heilongjiang, produces aircraft for the Chinese market that are similar to the ones manufactured at the company’s headquarters in São José dos Campos, 90 kilometres from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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Angola: Provinces of Benguela and Hula to have international airports 2008-10-31 Luanda, Angola, 31 Oct – Angola is to have two more international airports in the future, which will be built in the provinces of Benguela and Huíla, Angola’s transport minister, Augusto Silva Tomás said in Luanda. During the ceremony to present the new deputy sector ministers, Carla Ribeiro Leitão de Sousa and José João, the minister, without giving dates, noted that the two new airports would contribute to the economic development of the country’s interior. The minister also spoke about a programme that aimed to acquire around 4,000 vehicles for inter-provincial and urban transport of people and goods. Tomás noted that one of his objectives was to improve the internal organisation model of air, road, rail and sea transport across the country.
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Angola: Angolan government projects economic growth of 11.8 pct for 2009 2008-10-30 Luanda, Angola, 30 Oct – The Angolan government has projected economic growth of 11.8 percent in 2008, in the National Plan that was approved Wednesday by the cabinet of Paulo Kassoma, along with the State Budget for 2009. Growth of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the Government’s National Plan for 2009, will mainly be driven by the non-oil sector, which is projected to grow 15.98 percent. The Angolan National Bank (BNA) said earlier this month that Angola’s economic growth, which totalled around 20 percent last year, would be affected by the current economic climate as it is reducing the price of oil on international markets, and oil accounts for a large portion of Angolan exports. The deputy governor of the BNA, Miguens Oliveira, said that GDP growth this year would be around 15 percent, which was lower than the most recent projections. On a macroeconomic level, the priorities outlined by Luanda in the Plan approved Wednesday are maintaining the rate of GDP growth, boosting non-oil production and macroeconomic stability.
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Angola: Luanda International Airport to be modernised by Portugals Somague 2008-10-30 Luanda, Angola, 30 Oct – Luanda’s International 4 de Fevereiro Airport is to undergo modernisation starting in November, which will make it possible to increase the number of passengers per year from 1.2 million to 3.6 million, at a cost of US$74 million. The Council of ministers Thursday authorise, airport management company Enana to sign a contract with Portuguese company Somague to expand and refurbish the passenger terminal of 4 de Fevereiro International Airport. Speaking to the press at the end of the meeting, the Transport minister, Augusto Tomaz said that the project would increase the number of departure lounges, desks and luggage conveyors, as well as increasing passenger processing capacity from 400 to 1,000 per hour. The work, which will take 12 months, includes building a new reception hall for passengers and increasing the car park capacity to by an extra 800 vehicles. According to Tomaz, the work is an intermediate measure that aims to do away with constraints caused by current high demand, until the city’s new airport is concluded.
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Angola: China’s ZTE takes on operational management of Movicel 2008-10-30 Luanda, Angola, 30 Oct – China’s ZTE Corp, recently chosen as a strategic partner of the Angolan government, is due Thursday to take on the management of mobile phone carrier Movicel, according to Angolan news agency Angpop. The date was set in the operational management contract signed, a month ago, with ZTE Internacional Angola. Before ZTE, operational management of the state company was carried out by Israel company Communico, part of the LR group. The change in management is the start of a partial privatisation process (80 percent) of the mobile operators, under the terms of an executive decree. Movicel, which has been in the Angolan market since 2003, was the first company to offer the advantages and benefits of mobile telephony in the East African country. The company began by providing mobile telecoms services and management of the 91 network, as a subsidiary of Angola Telecom.
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Portugal: Cimpor cement company buys Chinese company Liyang Dongfang Cement 2008-10-30 Lisbon, Portugal, 30 Oct – Portuguese cement group Cimpor said Wednesday in Lisbon it had acquired 100 percent of Chinese company Liyang Dongfang cement Co (Liyang) for 210 million yuan (around 25 million euros). Liyang, which was set up at the end of 2003, has a clinker production line with the capacity to produce 900,000 tonnes per year, located near the city of Changzhou, in Jiangsu province, with a natural market that covers the cities of Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou, in one of the areas of greatest development in the Yangtze river delta. Cimpor said that with this investment and the conclusion, next year, of projects currently underway – a new integrated factory (Shanting) and two new mills (Huaian and Suchian) – Cimpor Chengton will increase its annual capacity for production of cement using its own clinker to over 6 million tonnes. The Cimpor Group, which operate sin Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa, Cape Verde, Peru, India and China, with this new acquisition has increased its presence in a market that, as well as being the biggest in the world, continues to have great potential growth.
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Cape Verde: Work only power plant in Santiago to begin in 2009 2008-10-29 Praia, Cape Verde, 29 Oct – Building work on the new power plant on Santiago island is due to begin at the end of January 2009, the director-general of Industry and Energy, Abraão Lopes said Monday in Praia. The agreement that will mark the start of the project was signed Tuesday in Praia between the Cape Verdean government and Portuguese companies Construção e Manutenção Electromecânica (CME) and Efacec Engenharia. The project, worth an estimated 40 million euros, is supported by three financiers: African Development Bank (ADB), the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the Investment and Development Bank of the Economic Community of West African States (ECWAS) and the government of Cape Verde. "It is an extremely complex project, in technical and financial terms,” Lopes told Cape Verdean news agency Inforpress, explaining the delay in launching the project. According to Lopes, the CME group will supply and install the high voltage cable and Efacec will supply and install transformer stations, which will increase and/or reduce voltages. The next step after signing those contracts will be to set up loans, which will take between one and two months. "After that stage there may be an interval in which equipment and materials are manufactured, and therfore we think that the companies will be on the ground around the end of January,” said Lopes. According to Lopes the project is fundamentally important to solve the problems Santiago has with production and distribution of electricity.
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Mozambique: Chinese company to build road in Tete province 2008-10-29 Maputo, Mozambique, 29 Oct – Construction of a road between Chitima and Mágoé, in the central region of Mozambique’s Tete province, is due to begin in November, over a stretch of around 200 kilometres, according to Brito Soca, the provincial director for Public Works and Housing. Brito Soca said that the road would be asphalted and added that Chinese company China Hennan International Cooperation Group (Chico), which was granted the tender in September, was currently setting up work sites along the road. Routine maintenance work is currently underway in Tete on some roads, with greater focus on those linking the city of Tete to the district capitals of Zumbu and Mutarara, which are practically useless during the rainy season. The director for Public Works and Housing of Tete said that the province had a road network totalling 4,380 kilometres, 2,932 kilometres of which are classified as 100 percent usable in the dry season and just 70 percent in the rainy season.
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Angola: Chinas Huawei opens training centre in Angola 2008-10-29 Luanda, Angola, 29 Oct – Huawei, the Chinese multinational telecommunications network company, has announced it will soon open a training centre for sector professionals in Angola, according to the trade press. Citing information from the Chinese company, South African website ITWeb said that expected growth in Africa had led Huawei to open another centre in Angola, after in July inaugurating a training centre in South Africa, its fifth in Africa. According to Huawei’s estimates, the company expects turnover in Africa in 2008 of around US$2 billion, as compared with US$1.6 billion in 2007. Bo Xue, the managing director of Huawei for sub-Saharan Africa, said that opening the training centre in Angola – for which date and location are not yet known – was a result of a need to find technically trained people to work with wireless WiMax and fourth generation networks, to meet market demand, ITWeb reported. “Getting these technicians from China or Europe would be the short term solution. The sustainable and long term solution is to invest in training local technicians,” Bo said. “The centres also make it possible for us to transfer knowledge and qualifications to our partners about new generation networks, thus overcoming the lack of technical staff and engineers in Angola,” he said. The Angolan centre will be the sixth in Africa, after Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya and South Africa. In Angola, Huawei had been training local technicians by shipping them to the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, with over 400 Angolans taking part in this scheme. The Chinese company recently announced an investment of US$7 million to build a technical telecommunications training centre and to transform the Angola Telecommunications Institute into a Telecommunications University. In the Angolan market, Huawei sells technology to operators Angola Telecom and MSTelcom and has an office of around 100 staff, of which around half are Angolan, the company said. According to Huawei’s worldwide Communications director, Ross Gan, it is in the emerging markets that the Shenzhen company (in Guangdong province, bordering Macau) expects greatest growth, due to population increases and the low penetration levels of mobile phones. The company’s new focus for Africa, Ross Gan said, was to develop specific products to respond to the specific difficulties of the continent, such as a lack of electricity. Huawei thus pledges in the short term to provide more energy efficient technology to ensure mobile network coverage across the whole territory of the markets in which it operates. Huawei in 2007 announced revenues of US$16 billion and expects an increase in 2008 to US$23 billion. In 2007 the African market accounted for 36 percent of new sales for Huawei.
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Mozambique: Bridge over Lugela river, in Zambzia province, opened 2008-10-28 Maputo, Mozambique, 28 Oct – The new bridge over the Lugela river, linking the Mozambican districts of Mocuba and Lugela, in Mozambique’s Zambézia province, was officially inaugurated Thursday by Mozambique’s president. The government’s decision after the bridge was destroyed in flooding in 1998 was to build an alternative bridge across one of the Lugela’s tributaries, but this bridge was also destroyed by flooding in 2001. The new bridge cost 191 million meticais (around US$7.6 million) and was funded by the State Budget. It was built by a consortium of POrtugeuse companies, Construtora do Tâmega and Conduril - Construtora Duriense. The bridge is 270 metres long and has two lanes, and links the districts of Mocuba and Lugela, preventing travellers from making a 100-kilometre detour. The managing director of the Natinal Roads Institute, Eusébio Siquela told Mozambican news agency AIM that the new bridge was 1 metre higher than the highest level of water ever recorded in floods of the Lugela river.
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Cape Verde: Inflation projected at 6.5 percent this year and to slow in 2009 2008-10-28 Praia, Cape Verde, 28 Oct – The inflation rate in Cape Verde is expected to total 6.5 percent this year and to be lower in 2009, according to projections from the Bank of Cape Verde (BCV), cited by Cape Verdean news agency Iforpress. Previous projections pointed to a rate of inflation of 6 percent for 2008 and for 2009 the State Budget projects inflation of 3 or 4 percent. The governor of the BCV, Carlos Burgo, explained the projected reduction of inflation in 2009 by pointing to a fall in oil prices and grains on the international market and prospects of a good agricultural year in the country. In September inflation in Cape Verde stood at 6.2 percent, a rise of 0.1 percentage points against the previous month, according to figures from Cape Verde’s National Statistics Institute (INE).
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Mozambique: Grain production to increase by 17 percent 2008-10-27 Maputo, Mozambique, 27 Oct – Grain production in Mozambique in the 2008/2009 season may total 2.6 million tonnes as compared to 2.3 million in the previous season, or a 17 percent rise, according to a report in newspaper Notícias. The paper added that it had figures to show that projections for the 2008/2009 season were good, citing cases such as legumes (beans and peanuts) and manioc (cassava), whose production is expected to rise 7 percent to 411,000 and 957,600 tonnes, respectively. Meanwhile, three associations of farmers in the district of Nicoadala have received tractors and tools and tem heads of cattle to pull ploughs, in order to meet the challenge of increasing production and productivity.
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Angola: Stanley Ho’s Geocapital enters Angolan bank market 2008-10-24 Lisbon, Portugal, 24 Oct - Geocapital has entered the Angolan financial market in partenrship with state oil company Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola (Sonangol), the company’s chairman and shareholder, Jorge Ferro Ribeiro told Portuguese financial newspaper Diário Económico. For that, said Ferro Ribeiro, a company called Geopactum was set up, in which a majority stake – 50.01 percent is in the hands of two Sonangol subsidiaries, Banco Privado Angolano (BPA) and Global Pactum, the oil group’s insurer, and Geocapital has kept the remaining 49.9 percent. According to Ferro Ribeiro the deal also includes Geocapital taking a stake in Banco Privado Atlântico (BPA), a process that is expected to take place simultaneously with that of Millennium bcp, as a result of an agreement recently signed between BCP and Angola – in which BCP sold 49 percent of Millenium Angola to Sonangol (29.9 percent) and BPA (20 percent). The date and details of Geocapital’s involvement in BPA’s capital have yet to be defined (direct sale of shares or capital increase). Diário Económico said however that Geocapital’s stake or that of Geopactum was likely to be identical to that of Millennium bcp, of around 10 percent, and that it would be finalised by the end of the year, with the fact that Stanley Ho himself already owning a direct and indirect stake in BCP of 3 percent, having some influence. Geocapital, first entered the banking sector in Guinea BIssau where in 2007 it acquired a majority stake in Banco da África Ocidental (BAO), the country’s largest financial institution. Six months later, it went into Mozambique by launching Moza Banco, which is 51 percent owned by Moçambique Capitais – a company owned by 250 local investors – and 49 percent by Geocapital.
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Angola: New International Luanda Airport concluded in 2010 2008-10-24 Luanda, Angola, 24 Oct – The new International Luanda Airport, located 30 kilometres from the Angolan capital, to be built by China International Fund Limited, is due to be concluded in 2010, according to António Flores, of the national Reconstruction Office. The new airport, which will cover Ana era of 5,000 hectares, will have two double runways, with the capacity to receive the world’s largest commercial airliner, the Airbus A380. Flores said that, “when it is operational the northern runway will be 4,200 meters long, whilst the southern runway will be 3,800 metres long and both will be 60 metres wide each.” Flores also said that the runway was ready to receive the base layer and asphalt despite having some problems, "with expropriation of land belonging to 140 families living in the airport area." Construction will also include a passenger terminal for national and international flights, a control tower and several hotels. In order to carry out the work, the Chinese construction company set up a concrete factory to produce up to 480 tonnes per hour.
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Angola: Special economic area of Viana to have 70 factories 2008-10-24 Luanda, Angola, 24 Oct – The Special Economic Area (ZEE), located in the municipality of Viana, some 30 kilometres from the Angolan capital of Luanda, will have 70 factories, 11 of which are already complete, Angolan news agency Angop reported. The ZEE will have factories for the sectors of food, clothing, copper foundry, aluminium, pharmaceutical, construction materials, electricity, machinery and others. The Special Economic Area includes two hubs, an industrial one and a retail one, a technology and convention centre and will employ around 3,000 people. As well as industrial units, streets are being built along with water and electricity sub-stations, waste water treatment, and a water storage centre. The overall area of the ZEE is 8,000 hectares, which will be split into 106 lots to set up the factories, which will benefit from tax breaks.
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Macau: Portuguese-owned company opens coffee roasting factory in Macau 2008-10-23 Luanda, Angola, 23 Oct – Portuguese-owned company Sociedade Industrial de Macau (SIM) Wednesday began roasting coffee in Macau, in a project focused on exports to China and providing services in Asia, the company’s managing director said. The new factory, which will have total investment fo around US$25 million, imports green coffee from Brazil, India and Vietnam to manufacture “Olá Café” branded coffee, which is mainly for export to China. Speaking to Portuguese news agency Lusa, João Basto said that, "the factory began its production with a target for 2009 – roasting, grinding and packaging over 1,000 tonnes of coffee and an installed capacity of 9,000 tonnes.” For the marketing and sale of Olá Café in China, SIM already ahs representatives in the cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, in southern China, and is setting up an office in Beijing, which will be followed by Hong Kong and Shanghai.
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Mozambique: Iron ore mine to start operating in Lalaua 2008-10-23 Maputo, Mozambique, 23 Oct – Exploration of an iron ore mine in Lalaua, Nampula province, is due to begin in mid November, Mozambican daily newspaper Notícias reported Wednesday, citing officials from Indian consortium Damodar Ferro. Rui Pinto told the paper that China was one of the certain customers for the project whose companies will buy projected production of 20 tonnes per day. Pinto also said work to rebuild and widen the 56 kilometres of dirt road from the mine to the Iapala railway station would be concluded in November, and the ore would be transported from Iapala to the port of Nacala by train. The roads Works involved construction of a second lane to allow trucks to travel in both directions at the same time. Pinto told Notícias that the iron ore at Lalaua was of high quality, which led to contracts being quickly signed with Chinese companies. Tests carried out at Lalaua showed that the mine had deposits that would allow its intensive mining over four years and that there were indications of further deposits in the same district.
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Brazil: Brazilian imports from Portuguese-speaking countries rise 134 pct between January and September 2008-10-23 Brasilia, Brazil, 23 Oct – Brazilian imports from the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) rose 134.4 percent to US$2.51 billion in the first nine months of this year, against the same period of 2007, officials said. In the opposite direction, Brazilian exports to CPLP countries totalled US$2.73 billion, a rise of 30.9 percent year on year the Brazilian Ministry for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade said. Brazil’s trade surplus with CPLP countries fell from US$1.02 billion to US$220.82 billion in the period, as a result of record imports this year from CPLP countries. Angola and Portugal accounted for practically all trade between Brazil and the CPLP, with trade of US$3.33 billion and US$1.85 billion, respectively. Last year, total trade between Brazil and CPLP countries was US$4.39 billion, with Brazil posting a surplus of US$1.8 billion. Total Brazilian imports were US$131.22 billion, a rise of 52.4 percent, in the period. Total Brazilian exports were US$150.86 billion, a rise of 28.7 percent, year on year in the first nine months of the year. Brazil posted an overall trade surplus of 19.64 billion, a fall of 36.8 percent in the period.
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Brazil: Chinese exports to Brazil rise 70 pct in first nine months of 2008 2008-10-23 Brasilia, Brazil, 23 Oct – Chinese exports to Brazil rose 69.9 percent in the first nine months of this year, against the same period of 2007, to US$14.86 billion, the Brazilian Ministry for Development and Trade said. In the same period, Brazilian exports to China increased by 67.3 percent, to US$13.71 billion. China’s trade surplus with Brazil more than doubled, rising from US$545 million, in the first nine months of 2007, to US$1.14 billion in the same period of this year. China mainly sold electronic products, machines and equipment and bought soy, coffee, orange juice, iron ore and oil from Brazilian companies. Over the last few years China has increased it trade, making it the second biggest exported of products to Brazil, after the United States and ahead of Argentina. Last year, total trade between Brazil and China was US$23.3 billion, with China posting a surplus of US$1.8 billion. Total Brazilian imports were US$131.22 billion, a rise of 52.4 percent, in the period. Total Brazilian exports were US$150.86 billion, a rise of 28.7 percent, year on year in the first nine months of the year. Brazil posted an overall trade surplus of 19.64 billion, a fall of 36.8 percent in the period.
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Mozambique: Mozambican state company wants to build railroad in Malawi 2008-10-22 Blantyre, Malawi, 22 Oct – Mozambican state company Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM) has put itself forward to rebuild the railway line between Blantyre in Malawi and Vila Nova da Fronteira in Mozambique, according to Monday’s edition of Malawian newspaper the Daily Times. According to the paper, the chairman of the company, Rui Fonseca, made the offer public last week, during a meeting in the city of Beira to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the concession contract on the port of Beira to Dutch company Cornelder. At the time, Fonseca said he had made the offer some weeks back and was still awaiting a reply from the Maalwi authorities. "We are building a 45 kilometre stretch between Vila Nova da Fronteira and Nsanje and we have asked the Malawian government to authorise us to continue for a further 100 kilometres to Blantyre," Fonseca said. The chairman of CFM said that the 100 kilometres of railway line would cost around US$11 million and that his company and that the company was available to make that investment in order to ensure that products from Malawi can be transported along the line to the port of Beira. Malawi was once a big customer for the port of Beira but the railway line was destroyed at the beginning of the 1980s during Mozambique’s civil war.
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Brazil: China’s CNOOC wants oil and ethanol joint venture with Petrobras in 2009 2008-10-22 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 22 Oct – The chairman of the China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), Fu Chengyu, said in Rio de Janeiro that his company wanted a joint venture with Brazil’s Petrobras in 2009 in the oil and ethanol production sectors in Brazil. "Within a short time you will see a joint evnture between CNOOC and Petrobras. We are determined to make a big investment in Brazil and we want to talk about that in detail with the Brazilian goevrnment,” said Fu, cited by Monitor Mercantil. According to the chairman of CNOOC, the Chinese state company has teh technology and capacity to “provide what Brazil needs.” The chairman of CNOOC also guranteed that the deal would open up the way for Petrobras to explore the Chinese coast. “We want cooperation that works for both companies,” he said. Fu also said that the Chinese company already produced 2.4 million tonnes of ethanol per year, but that its aim was to double that amount in teh next four years. CNOOC produced 72.9 million barrels of oil and 112.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas in the first six months of this year and its oil production was 7.1 percent higher than in 2007.
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Angola: Gold mining to be re-launched in Chipindo municipality 2008-10-21 Chipindo, Angola, 21 Oct – Gold mining in the Chipindo municipality of Angola’s Huíla province is due to be re-launched in the next two years, 30 years after it was suspended, the municipal director Daniel Salupassa said Monday. Speaking to Angolan news agency, Angpop, Salupassa said that gold mining would begin as soon as the process of assessing the location’s economic viability had been concluded. Salupassa said that the companies that had shown interest in gold mining were currently being legalised. Located some 420 kilometres north of Lubango, Huíla province, the Chipindo municipality has an estimated population of almost 71,000 people.
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Angola: KPMG Angola publishes study on Angolan banking sector 2008-10-21 Luanda, Angola, 21 Oct – The rate of transfer of deposits into credits at Angola’s retail banks was 75 percent in 2007, exceeding the 43 percent rate posted in 2006, according to study on the banking sector by KPMG Angola, due to be published on 29 October. In an interview given Monday to Angolan news agency Angop, the chief executive of KPMG Angola, Luís Folhadela said that the rate was still low compared to more developed markets, but for a country like Angola it was a high level of growth for a year, as the economy was generating credit opportunities. Folhadela also said that credit to the economy had risen 85 percent, whilst its deposit portfolio had seen growth of some 43 percent, a notable level. In the period, he said, at least 1,750 new jobs, for graduates and middle management, had been created, as a result of new bank branches opening across the country. One of the facts that is reflected in the study, according to the CEO of KPMG Angola, is the reduced concentration of the banking sector, changes in position in the ranking of banks due to new operators enetering the market, "making business more competitive and aggressive." He noted that the Angolan banking sector still had great room for growth, as the penetration rate of banks across the country currently stood at just 6.7 percent and many companies and individuals still needed banking services. KPMG Angola, the market leader in auditing and consulting services, was the first institution to promote a study on the Angolan financial sector, which was first published in 2005. KPMG, which ahs been in Angola since 1996, has a staff of over 200, and is part of a consortium along with Banco Fomento Angola that is providing technical support to the Angolan stock market regulator, CMC for the creation of the stock exchange itself.
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Guinea Bissau: China to develop telecommunications facilities in Guinea Bissau 2008-10-20 Bissau, Guinea Bissau, 20 Oct – The chief executive of Guiné Telecom said Friday in Bissau that China would invest US$50 million in developing telecommunications infrastruture in the West African country, under the terms of a bilateral agreement. Guiné Telecom is majority-owned by Portugal Telecom, which has a 49 percent stake, but the Portuguese company recently stood down from its management due to a 30 million-euro debt owed by the Guinean government. Speaking to Portuguese news agency Lusa, João Isidoro also said that the Chinese investment was the result of a deal signed between the two governments to provide “Guiné Telecom with facilities that are fundamental for developing the telecommunications sector.” “The agreement not only covers Guiné Telecom, but extends to the entire country,” he noted. Isidoro said that the agreement covers two projects, the first of which includes installing a fibre optic network across the country, which will end at the borders with Guinea Conakry and with Senegal, which will allow for international Access, which will have an effect on electronic governance. Isidoro noted the installation of a “platform to link all State departments and ease their operation, as well as access by citizens to State services.”
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Angola: South Africa Intaka Tech supplies water purification plants 2008-10-17 Cape Town, South Africa, 17 Oct – South African firm Intaka tech has signed a contract worth US$29 million with the Angolan authorities to build water purification plants to produce 78 million litres of drinking water daily, company sources said. The purification centers are part of the Angolan government’s “Water for All” project aimed to benefit some 2.6 million people in the initial phase of the scheme. Intaka Tech, based in Cape Town, said each purification plant will supply 1.1 million litres of drinking water per day. “The purification plants are easy to install and transport, with low operating costs and easy maintenance”, the South African company said. Intaka Tech also said has opened an office in Angola to handle maintenance and training for the project.
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Angola: Oil output to hit 2 million bpd in November 2008-10-17 Luanda, Angola, 17 Oct - Angola expects to reach daily oil production of 2 million barrels per day in the coming three weeks, the Jornal de Angola newspaper cited Francisco Lopes da Cunha, geological manager for Sonangol, as saying. Angola, which has overtaken Nigeria as Africa’s biggest oil producer, currently pumps 1.959 million barrels per day. “Angola reached 2 million barrels of oil per day on 2 May this year. Within three weeks we will be at around 2 million”, da Cunha told a South African conference. Angolan oil accounted for 5 percent of total United States crude imports in 2007, corresponding to 496,000 barrels of oil per day, according to official US figures. Da Cunha said “Angolan production will begin to fall from 2015 and remain steady at 2.1 million barrels per day. But until then it will remain at a level above 2 million.” Sonangol announced this week successful drilling of two deepwater wells in Angola’s offshore Block 31.
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Brazil: Camargo Correa construction group to build luxury apartments 2008-10-17 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 17 Oct – Brazilian constructor Camargo Correa will build a luxury residence complex at Costa do Sol in the northern suburbs of the Angolan capital, the Gazeta Mercantil business newspaper has reported. The development, being undertaken with Escom Imobilaria, part of the Espirito Santo Group, will have 220 luxury apartments with prices ranging from 330, 000 euros to 1.48 million euros. The project is the second luxury development in Luanda by the Brazilian firm following the Acqua Ville condominium venture at the start of the year. Camargo Correa plans further housing projects in Angola in the next two years. One of these will be the Luanda South Business Center, with 10 five-storey buildings and 80,000 square meters of office space. Camargo Correa is also building a 1,500 megawatt hydroelectric dam at Mphanda Nkuma on Mozambique’s Zambezi River with investments of 2.1 billion euros.
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Mozambique: Cashew Promotion Institute wants to boost production to 250,000 tons per year 2008-10-17 Maputo, Mozambique, 17 Oct - Mozambique is seeking to raise its cashew production to 250,000 tons yearly in the next five to 10 years to restore its position as one of the world’s biggest producers of the cash crop, the Noticias newspaper cited Santos Frijone of the Economics Department of the Cashew Promotion Institute (INCAJU) as saying. To reach this production target INCAJU wants to raise annual replacement of plants from 1.5 million to 3 million. In recent years replanting of cashew plantations with more disease-resistant strains has allowed average annual production to climb to 80,000 tons. Mozambique was the world’s biggest cashew producer in the 1970s. The industry began to decline in the 1980s due to climate factors, ageing of plants and the appearance of various diseases. Cashew production almost ceased completely in the 1990s due to policies forced on Mozambique by the World Bank.
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China: Portugal's Amorim Revestimentos to open cork factory in Xian 2008-10-17 Macau, China, 17 Oct - Amorim Revestimentos will open a cork granulate derivatives plant in Xian in the Chinese province of Shaanxi, project manager Gaspar Malheiro told the Lusa News Agency. “We are in the process of construction licensing and despite of the current (unfavourable world) state of affairs the project remains and will be concluded,” said Malheiro. Amorim Revestimentos' market director Mario Costa said the firm had sales of around 2 million euros in 2007 and this figure would likely increase by 10 percent in 2008. “Covering (cork) is a market niche as it is not a flooring of the masses like others on the market”, said the Chinese market director, noting that choice of cork flooring “already demands deeper knowledge by the buyer.” Costa added that Amorim has betted on high-end property projects, hotels and leisure centers in a market that means the Portuguese company exports between 35 and 40 containers to China yearly. Besides the Xian factory, being built by Amorim Beijing, a firm established for several years in China and dedicated to marketing bottle corks and other cork products with annual sales of around 4 million euros, the Amorim group “does not also rule out the possibility” of creating a distribution center in China. The Portuguese company has operated in China since 2002 and has a distribution network in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, in the area of cork flooring.
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Brazil: Firms do business worth US$26 million at Luanda event 2008-10-17 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 17 Oct - Representatives from over 150 Brazilian firms struck deals valued at US$26 million during a promotion event in the Angolan capital, Luanda, says Juarez Leal, PR and market access coordinator of the Apex-Brazil trade and investment promotion agency. Over 60 Brazilian business executives met with 252 Angolan entrepreneurs over two days of contacts aimed to establish partnerships in the sectors of food and drinks, housing and construction, garments, footwear, jewellery and industrial machinery. Firm orders of US$ 1.4 million were obtained by the Brazilian companies and other agreements valued at US$24.6 million await signing of contracts, according to APEX. APEX-Brazil project manager Mauricio Manfre said with Angola’s stable government and openness to foreign investment “Brazil needs to consolidate its presence in Angola, and this is the moment.” An APEX-Brazil study found that two-way exchanges between Brazil and Angola grew by 500 percent between 2004 and 2007 to reach a value of just over US$2 billion at the end of this period. Between 2004 and 2007, Brazil imported US$ 945 million worth of goods from Angola and exported US$1.2 billion in return.
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Mozambique: Govt to create four science and technology parks 2008-10-17 Maputo, Mozambique, 17 Oct - Mozambique will build four science and technology parks in the coming years in the provinces Maputo (Manhiça and Moamba), Zambezia and Nampula, which will specialize in research, the Noticias newspaper reported Friday. Areas embraced by the project include start-ups of research firms in agrarian technologies, agro-processing, energy and the environment, telecoms, biotechnologies and biomedicine, and construction materials. The Maputo government met Tuesday to approve the Program for Creation of Science and Technology Parks in Mozambique. Science and Technology Minister Venancio Massingue said the first park will be set up soon in the district of Manhiça, in Maputo province in partnership with the Indian government to begin a project that will last 10 years. “The provincial government has already arranged space to build this initiative and we have already provided funds for the first phase of the setting up the Manhiça park,” the minister said. The Mozambican and Indian governments have jointly provided US$ 25 million to create the Manhiça Science and Technology Park. Maputo’s science and technology minister said the funds will be used to build laboratories, classrooms, assembly lines for IT equipment, as well as finalization of the facility and the provision of its power and water supplies. Massingue said the new technology parks “will help to transfer and commercialize technologies, fostering entrepreneurship, development of SMEs and IT systems, in addition to development of innovatory products and services.
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Brazil: Mission from Espírito Santo state in China to meet with Baostel 2008-10-15 Vitória, Brazil, 15 Oct – A mission from the state government of Espírito Santo in Brazil is travelling to China for meetings with the Boasteel steel making company, which plans to invest US$4.5 billion in building a steel foundry in partnership with Brazil’s Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), in the Brazilian state. A statement from the state government said that this was a “technical visit that aims to make it easier to publish information about Boasteel’s investments (…).” The factory will also be located in the Anchieta district and create 3,000 direct jobs when it goes into operation. The mission, which also included representatives of the Federation of Industries of Espírito Santo (Findes) plans to visit the Baosteel group’s foundry in Shanghai. Construction of the unit - Companhia Siderúrgica Vitória – is expected to be launched in the first half of 2009 and will begin by producing 5 million steel plates for export by 2012, according to the deal signed between Baosteel and CVRD. According to the chairman of CVRD, Roger Agnelli, the Siderúrgica Vitória project will require investment of US$4.5 billion for construction of the factory, US$500 million for infrastructure development in the port of Ubu, also in Espírito Santo, and US$400 million to develop the railroad serving the port. Chinese state-owned company Baosteel is currently the fifth largest producer of steel in the world, but aims to increase its production four-fold to 80 million tons per year by 2012 and make it the second-largest company in the sector, after Arcelor Mittal. In 2006 CVRD became China’s biggest supplier of iron ore, with exports of 20.4 million tons.
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Brazil: Sabo car Parts Company starts production in Chin 2008-10-15 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 15 Oct – Brazilian car part manufacturer Sabó has installed a factory in the Chinese district of Tongzhou, on the outskirts of Beijing, to supply six Volkswagen projects set up in China, according to a report Wednesday in Brazilian financial newspaper Gazeta Mercantil. The factory, which covers an area of 3,000 square metres and represents an investment of 7 million euros has the capacity to produce 200,000 parts each month for vehicle transmission axles. Sabó plans to invest 5 million euros by 2010 and the remaining 2 million by 2013 using funding from Austrian and German banks. Luis Gonzalo Guardia Souto, the managing director of Sabó for South America told the newspaper that the study for installing the factory, which went into operation two weeks ago, took four years. Souto also said that setting the factory up in China was a result of a supply contract for Germany’s Volkswagen rather than to reduce production costs. "We have had an intentional contract with Volkswagen for two years," Souto said, notng that the company did not plan to replace production at any other unit with that of China. Sabó’s speciality is manufacturing sealing systems, particularly engine joints, pipes and seal retainers. In Brazil the company has two factories, employs 3,415 workers and produces over 500,000 parts per day. Sabó also has factories in Europe, the United States and Argentina, as well as commercial offices in Japan and Australia.
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Angola: Chinese company Sino-Hidro builds water supply network in Kuito 2008-10-14 Kuito, Angola, 14 Oct – Around 400,000 people living in the city of Kuito, the capital of Angola’s Bié province, will as of 2009 have access to drinking water, the provincial director for energy and water, Anabela Caiovo Gunga told Angolan news agency Angop. Chinese company Sino-Hidro has been carrying out construction of the new water supply and treatment system since the beginning of the year, at an estimated cost of US$20 million. Caiovo Gunga said that the Chinese company was concluding construction of a water distribution tank, the water storage station and the water treatment area. The provincial director for energy and water also said that, the company was installing the water distribution network in some neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Kuito. Currently the inhabitants of Kuito are supplied via the old water storage and treatment system, which is in a poor state of repair.
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Mozambique: Chinese company expands and refurbishes water supply system in Maputo 2008-10-13 Maputo, Mozambique, 13 Oct – Chiense company China Matallurgical Construction Group – MCC has concluded its work on refurbishing and expanding the Mozambican capital’s water supply system, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Joaquim Cossa told Macauhub. The work, with a value of US$145 million, refurbished and expanded the capital's water treatment facility, built five new storage tanks each with a capacity to store 35,000 cubic metres of water and rebuild and expand the tanks in the Maxaquene neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Maputo, adding 20,000 cubic metres to their capacity. MCC also built three new pressure towers, with a total capacity of 1,100 cubic metres, refurbished and boosted 110 kilometres of distribution network, increased the network by 540 kilometres and opened 446 new water supply fountains and 50,000 new links to the network. As a consequence of this project water production capacity was increased from 6,000 to 10,000, cubic metres per hour. Around 1.5 million people, double the previous number, now have access to piped water in Maputo. The Maputo government, by 2009, plans to provide water to 60 percent of Maputo’s population. Coverage currently stands at just 40 percent. Millennium Challenge targets include 70 percent coverage by 2015.
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Angola: Chinese oil companies close to boosting presence in Angolan oil production 2008-10-13 London, United Kingdom, 13 Oct – Chinese oil companies China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) are ready to strengthen their presence in Angolan oil production, in what will be one of the deals of the year in the oil market. After over a year of difficult negotiations, the two oil companies came to an agreement with Marathon Oil Corp to buy a 20 percent stake in Bloc 32 on the Angolan coast, for around US$1.8 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sources close to the deal told the paper that the deal should be closed and officially announced within the next few weeks. Also vying for a stake in Marathon were the Brazilian Petrobras and Indian ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of Indian state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. In Brazil the press reported last week that Petrobras had definitely lost the deal. Dow Jones said that once the terms of the deal were verified, authorization from both governments would still be necessary. Initially, Marathon was demanding over US$ 2 billion for the stake, but had to lower its demands to more “realistic” terms, according to a source close to the deal quoted by Bloomberg. Marathon hopes to net between US$ 2 billion and US$ 4 billion between now and next year from the sale of oil assets. With the sale of 20 percent, Marathon retains a 10 percent stake in Block 32, the same as it holds in Block 31, approved for development by the Angolan government in July. Block 32 is also owned by Total (operator with 30 percent), Sonangol (20 percent), Exxon Mobil (15 percent) and the Portuguese Petrogal that holds five percent. In 2007, China represented 28 percent of Angolan foreign sales, 10 percentage points up on the previous year; these oil exports were worth US$ 10,605 million dollars, second only to exports to the US which reached US$ 12,855 million dollars. Proven Angolan offshore reserves are estimated at 11.4 billion barrels, according to international consultancy, Wood Mackenzie. Chinese oil companies have also been very active in preparing for the next round of bidding for petroleum blocks, which the Angolan government has set for after the elections. Onshore blocks in Cabinda (Central Block) and Kwanza (KON11 and KON12) and also one in shallow water (Block 9) will be up for tender. The state company Sonangol will also receive bids for three deepwater blocks (19, 20 and 21) and others in ultra deep water (46, 47 and 48). In 2006, Sinopec bought three stakes in Angolan oil fields, with total proven reserves of 3,200 billion barrels. With stakes of 27.5 percent, 40 percent and 20 percent in three offshore petroleum blocks which it exploits with Sonangol, the Chinese oil company will have paid close to US$2.4 billion. The Chinese oil company holds 75 percent in a joint venture, Sonangol Sinopec Internacional. Sinopec also invested US$1.5 billion to develop its share in the exploration of Block 18 off the Angolan coast which it explores in partnership with European oil company BP. The five fields which make up the Grande Plutonio oil project, Block 18, some 160km off the coast, should produce nearly 200 thousand barrels per day this year. In a global investment of US$5 billion, Grande Plutonio has reserves estimated at 644 million barrels and is operated by multinational British Petroleum (BP) in partnership with Sonangol and Sinopec. The fields are supported by a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) 310 metres long and 58 metres wide, with a storage capacity of 1.77 million barrels of oil.
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Mozambique: Chinese company CHICO to build water supply system in Manica 2008-10-10 Maputo, Mozambique, 10 Oct – Chinese construction company China Hennan International Cooperation Group (CHICO) has been awarded a contract for construction of an integrated water supply system to the areas of Chimoio, Gondola, Manica, Messic and Bandula, in the Mozambican central province of Manica, known as Chicamba. The Chicamba system is a project with a budget of US$44.7 million and is funded by the Mozambican government and the Netherlands. Joaquim Cossa, spokesman for the Mozambican Ministry for Public Works and Housing told Macauhub that the Chicamba system would include construction of a new water treatment station, as well as reconstruction and expansion of the water collection unit at the Chicamba dam. The project also includes construction of six water storage tanks, the biggest of which will be built in Chimoio (the provincial capital), with a capacity of 10,000 cubic metres. Other tanks will be built in Chicamba, Manica, Gondola, Messica and Bandula. For Chimoio, which currently ahs a water supply rate of 10 percent of the population, it is expected that the new project will raise that amount to 60 percent in 2010 and 75 percent in 2015. The project is also expected to increase the number of hours per day in which water is distributed to 24 from a current 16.
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Angola: Roc Oil strikes oil in onshore Cabinda 2008-10-10 Sydney, Australia, 10 Oct – Australian oil company Roc Oil announced Wednesday in Sydney that it had struck oil in the onshore area of Angola’s Cabinda enclave, adding that new test wells would be needed to establish if the oil was commercially viable. In a regulatory filing, Roc Oil said that the discovery, made at the “Massambalala-1” well, consisted of a 9.5 metre column of oil. The company said that a second well was planned, before work is suspended due to the rainy season. The oil at Massambalala is heavy oil, rather than the more valuable lighter oil that usually characterises oil from West African countries. At Massambalala, available figures show the potential presence of 170 million barrels of heavy oil. Work, which began a year ago, has led to the identification of two potential heavy oil reserves ("Massambalala-1" and "Côco-1"), the commercial viability of which will be tested between the end of this year and the beginning of 2009. Another well, “Sésamo-1” was recently judged to be dry. This bloc in Cabinda is operated by Roc Oil Cabinda, with a 60 percent share, whilst Forec Petroleum and Angolan state oil company Sonangol each have a 20 percent share.
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Angola: Oil production falls to 1.959 million barrels per day 2008-10-10 Cape Town, South Africa, 10 Oct – Oil production in Angola fell to 1.959 million barrels per day after previously reaching the 2 million mark, the chief geologist of state oil company Sonangol, Francisco Lopes da Cunha said in Cape Town Thursday. Speaking at the Africa Upstream 2008 oil conference, Lopes da Cunha said the fall was due to problems at an offshore well, but guaranteed that within around three weeks Angolan production would return to 2 million barrels per day. Oil has been the backbone of economic growth in Angola and most of the large oil companies are currently focused on prospecting and exploration, mainly in the offshore area of Angola’s Cabinda enclave. Lopes da Cunha noted that offshore production would continue to be the main source of oil in the country, and production would slightly exceed 2 million barrels per day and then slowly start falling in 2015.
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Angola: General cargo terminal at port of Luanda to undergo refurbishment 2008-10-10 Luanda, Angola, 10 Oct – The Multiterminais company plans to invest over US$13 million on the reconstruction of the dock and paving of the general cargo terminal at the port of Luanda, Angolan news agency Angop reported. The work will speed up the process of distributing cargo as well as loading up ships, based on a contract that was signed between Multiterminais and Portuguese construction company, Mota Engil. According to the director of Multiterminais, Leonel Rocha, the contract also involves reconstruction of the roads around the terminal as well as other work that will allow the dock to remain in operation in the initial stages. The work is schedueld to take a year and, of the five mooring spots, two will be in operation in order to reduce the impact of the work on the port’s operations«. The manager of the port of Luanda, António Bernardo, said that after the work had been carried out, ships would no longer have to wait several days to dock at the port.
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Cape Verde: Telecommunications sector accounts for 5 pct of GDP 2008-10-09 Praia, Cape Verde, 9 Oct – The telecommunications sector accounts for 5 percent of Cape Verde’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to electronic communications market indicators published by the telecoms market regulator, Agência Nacional das Comunicações (ANAC). According to those figures, cited by Cape Verdean news agency Inforpress, the total number of installed fixed-line telephones in the first half was 71,983, corresponding to a market penetration of 14.4 percent. The number of subscribers in the fixed-line market has stayed practically unchanged since 2003, remaining at around 72,000. In relation to mobile telephony, figures point to a total of 207,610 subscribers in the first half of 2008. The Internet saw a rise of 54.74 percent in ADSL services provided. Paid subscription television had 2,805 subscribers, which is a rise of 348.08 percent against the same period of the previous year and 106.40 percent against the second half of 2007.
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Cape Verde: Expansion work at port of Praia to begin Saturday 2008-10-09 Praia, Cape Verde, 9 Oct - Portuguese construction consortium Somague/MSF - Moniz da Maia, Serra e Fortunato is due Saturday to begin work on the first phase of expansion of the port of Praia, on Santiago Island in Cape Verde, the chairman of port management company, Empresa Nacional de Administração de Portos told newspaper A Semana. Franklin Spencer said that the work for the first phase would take two years and cost US$42.2 million, a figure which has been earmarked to build the cargo terminal, the Access road and rebuild dock number 2. The contract for carrying out this first phase of expansion and refurbishment of the port was signed on 30 July of this year. The second phase of the project, Spencer added, was scheduled to begin in mid 2009 and the total project was due for completion in 2011.
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Portugal: Trade with Portuguese-speaking Africa and East Timor rises 15.3 pct in 2007 2008-10-08 Lisbon, Portugal, 8 Oct – Trade between Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking African nations and East Timor rose 15.3 percent in 2007, despite accounting for a small proportion of Portuguese foreign tarde, according to the Bank of Portugal. In a report entitled, “The Development of the Economies of Portuguese-speaking African Countries and East Timor – 2007-2008,” published Tuesday in Lisbon, the Bank of Portugal said that Portuguese trade with the Portuguese-speaking African nations (PALOP) and East Timor accounted for just 4.47 percent of exports and 0.73 percent of imports. Increased trade between Portugal and the PALOP is mainly the result of increased trade with Angola, both in terms of exports and imports, with Angola accounting for 81 percent of Portuguese exports to the PALOP and East Timor worth a total 1.68 billion euros. Amongst the six countries in question, Cape Verde is the second biggest destination for Portuguese exports (225.7 million euros), followed by Mozambique (89.4 million euros), Guinea Bissau (34.2 million euros), Sao Tome and Principe (33.1 million euros) and East Timor (1.2 million euros). In total, to those six countries Portugal exported products worth a total of 2.063 billion, and imported goods worth 403.3 million euros. Of the six countries under analysis, Angola is also the main supplier to Portugal, accounting for 91.1 percent (369.5 million euros), particularly due to the “substantial” rise in oil, which reduced the importance of all other product categories. In terms of imports, Angola is followed by Mozambique (25.7 million euros), Cape Verde (7.2 million euros), Guinea Bissau (500,000 euros), Sao Tome and Principe (300,000 euros) and East Timor (200,000 euros).
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Angola: Brazilian exports to Angola total US$740 million in the first half 2008-10-08 Luanda, Angola, 8 Oct – Brazil’s exports to Angola totalled US$740 million in the first half of this year, as compared to US$44 million in the same period of 2007, Brazil’s ambassador to Angola, Afonso Cardoso said Tuesday in Luanda. During a meeting that brought together Angolan and Brazilian businesspeople the ambassador said that exports of food, clothing, household appliances, construction materials/equipment, public Works and medication had accounted for the huge growth. According to Angolan news agency Angop, the Brazilian diplomat said that the rise showed how important trade was within Angolan and Brazilian relations, and that it demonstrated the interest on both sides of boosting bilateral trade. Angola’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose from US$12 billion in 2003 to US$60 billion in 2007, whilst the country’s foreign debt fell from US$12 billion to US$6 billion in the same four-year period.
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Angola: Economic growth in 2008 may be 15 pct, deputy governor of central bank says 2008-10-08 Lisbon, Portugal, 8 Oct – Angola’s economic growth may be limited to 15 percent this year, which is lower than the latest projections, due to the world economic slowdown, the deputy governor of the Angola National Bank said in Lisbon Tuesday. Miguens de Oliveira said that, “economic growth could be affected,” due to the current climate, which is making the price of oil fall sharply on the international market. Oil accounts for a large portion of ANgolan exports. The deputy governor noted the importance of the on-oil sector in Angola’s economic growth and said that growth of around 15 percent would be “sufficiently large” for the country, which has been growing by 20 percent each year. The report on Development of the Economy of the PALOP 8Portuguese-sepaking African countries) and East Timor for 2007-2008, published Tuesday in Lisbon, points to growth in Angola this year of 26.6 percent, based on figures from the national bank, the Angolan treasury and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Another, more positive, effect of the current climate is a possible slowdown in inflation, at a time when the country is “well above the target of 10 percent” growth of the consumer price index (CPI). The deputy governor of the Angolan central bank was speaking at the 18th Lisbon Meeting with the delegations of the Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP) and East Timor to the Board of Director of the IMF and the World Bank, promoted by the Bank of Portugal.
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Angola: Brazil’s Odebrecht builds infrastructures in cities in Kwanza Sul province 2008-10-06 Sumbe, Angola, 6 Oct – Brazilian construction company Odebrecht has been granted the contract for urban renewal of the cities of Sumbe, Porto Amboim and Gabel in Angola’s Kwanza Sul province, said the company’s representative for the Angolan province. Marcelo Barreto de Morais, production manager for Odebrecht - Engenharia e Construções in Kwanza Sul, told Angolan news agency Angop that the project, with a budget of US$299.6 million, mainly aimed to “improve the quality of life for inhabitants.” Currently, the construction company is digging rainwater drainage channels, refurbishing water treatment plants and levelling ground in the area of Pomba Nova, in Sumbe. He said that a benefit of urban renewal of the cities was attracting investment and consequently increasing the quality of life of their inhabitants, considering improvements to sanitation and expansion of the water and power supply systems. The project includes rebuilding and construction of the new sewage, drainage, public lighting and paving systems in the three cities. The protocol granting the work was signed in July of last year and the work is scheduled to be carried out over four years in the cities of Gabela and Porto Amboim and over seven years in Sumbe.
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Cape Verde: Economic growth forecast between 6 and 7 percent in 2009, unchanged from 2008 2008-10-06 Praia, Cape Verde, 6 Oct – The Cape Verdean government expects gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year of between 6 and 7 percent, or 0.5 percentage points less than initially projected, and expects similar growth in 2009, Finance Minister, Cristina Duarte said in Praia Friday. At a press conference following a meeting with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Duarte said that, “this is still a level of growth that is considered to be robust.” This projection was based, she said, on string “domestic demand, both as a result of public investment and foreign direct investment,” but also to “reasonable growth of domestic credit, which saw a 24 percent rise in the first quarter,” of this year. Good management of public finances, which led to the budgetary execution being in line with what had been projected at the end of the first half, was another reason for this year’s economic growth projections. In relation to inflation, this year it is expected to be 6.5 percent, and next year between 3 and 4 percent.
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Mozambique: Mozambican airline acquires aircraft from Brazil’s Embraer 2008-10-06 Maputo, Mozambique, 6 Oct – Mozambican airline Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM), plans to invest US$100 million in the acquisition of four Embraer 190 and two Bombardier Q400 aircraft to replace its current fleet of Beoing /37-200s, the company’s chairman, José Viegas said. The two turbo-prop aircraft from Canada’s Bombardier are expected to be delivered by the end of this year, whilst the four jet aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer, with capacity for 119 passengers each, are due to be delivered in phase in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The chairman of the board of LAM said he believed that the new aircraft would make it possible to reduce maintenance costs, as they were new (the current Boeing 737-200s are 20 years old), as well as fuel costs. As well as the 737-200, LAM also uses, via its subsidiary, Mex-Mozambique Express, two turbo-prop aircraft capable of carrying 29 passengers in economy class. These aircraft also operate on regional routes, to Johannesburg and Durban in South Africa, and domestic routes, including some internal tourist destinations, namely Vilankulo and Inhambane, in the south of the country. LAM was recently certified by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as an operationally safe aviation company.
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Brazil: Bank of China authorised to start operating in Brazil 2008-10-03 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 3 Oct – The Bank of China, which is headquartered in Beijing, was Tuesday authorised to start operating in Brazil, with initial capital of US$60 million. This will be the first Chinese bank to be given permission to operate in Brazil and South America, the Brazilian authorities said. The bank, which will have its headquarters in Sao Paulo, will operate under the name Banco da China Brasil, and will support international trade between the two countries. The Chinese state bank, which operates in 26 other countries, was authorised to work in Brazil as a multiple bank, with a trade, investment and foreign exchange portfolio.
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Mozambique: Mozambican airline LAM certified by IATA 2008-10-03 Maputo, Mozambique, 3 Oct – Mozambican airline, Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) has been certified by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as an operationally safe aviation company, according to o a report in Mozambican newspaper, Canal de Moçambique. The paper reported that Mozambique was thus the only Portuguese-speaking African country with certification and that in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) just five other countries have IATA certified airlines. The IATA certificate, the paper added, shows that LAM is a “company that complies with and observes all excellence requirements in terms of operational safety, via its IOSA- IATA Operational Safety Audit programme.” IOSA is an internationally recognised auditing programme outlined by IATA, which establishes the best operating safety standards and in which 928 requirements are audited, particularly airlines’ management processes and operating procedures.
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Sao Tome and Principe: Government announces international tender for thermal power plant 2008-10-03 Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe, 3 Oct – The prime minister of Sao Tome and Principe, Rafael Branco, said Wednesday in Sao Tome that his government planned to launch an international tender for construction of a 30-megawatt thermal power plant under concession. On making his summary of 100 days of government, Branco said that solving the country’s energy problem was an urgent task and announced, “Immediate measure in the power generation sector.” “As part of cooperation with Taiwan, we plan to refurbish three groups of generators by the end of the year. The parts are in the country, the Taiwanese team is due to arrive in the next few days and we think that, by the end of the year, we will have additional production.” He also said that over the next few days a tender would be launched for construction, in the short term, of another 8-megawatt thermal power plant. “The Council of Ministers has already made the decision and for the 8 megawatt plant funding is already guaranteed. For the 30 megawatt one, this will be run by concession and we are going to launch an international tender,” Branco said.
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Cape Verde: Government closes fish preserving and storage company and plans to create fishing support facility 2008-10-03 Praia, Cape Verde, 3 Oct The government of Cape Verde plans to liquidate fish preservation and storage company, Interbase and pay compensation to its 47 employees, after a fire last month destroyed the main refrigerated warehouses on the island of S. Vicente. The move was announced by the minister for the Environment, Rural Development and Marine Resources, José Maria Veiga, who said that the resolution that approved this decision was expected to go to the Council of Ministers in the next few weeks. Veiga said that the land on which Interbase was located, in Mindelo, would be used for the future investment project. The Cape Verdean government had said that Interbase would be recovered after the fire on 9 September, when it said it has 14 million euros available for the job. With the cash available for immediate investment, according to the prime minister, a new facility will soon be built that will be different to Interbase, which will be a “platform for support to international fishing in Cape Verde, with headquarters in Sao Vicente, but which should serve all the islands.” The idea, according to Veiga, is to build an entirely new building with better conditions and equipment to support not only Cape Verdean fishermen, but also foreign vessels fishing in Cape Verde. Negotiations for the new facility are also underway and the tender will be launched in November. Following the fire, at least 30 retail food outlets in Mindelo lost around 300 tonnes of frozen foods and other fresh items and vegetables that were stored in Interbase’s refrigeration units.
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