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Angola: China’s Eximbank looks to boost presence in Angolan market 2008-12-19 Beijing, China, 19 Dec - Eximbank CEO Li Ruobu has said the Chinese financial institution could expand its participation in reconstruction projects in Angola, state news agency Angop has reported. Li said Thursday after talks with visiting Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos that his bank plans expanded cooperation with the Angolan Finance Ministry, in addition to strengthening an existing line of credit of around US$ 5 billion already granted to Angola. President dos Santos, winding up a three-day visit to China Friday aimed to strengthen cooperation in more areas with the Asian country, also met the CEO of the Sinohydro Corporation, Fan Jixiang. Primarily geared to civil construction, Sinohydro employs around 3,000 Angolans in a portfolio of 70 projects, 25 of which have been concluded. Fan Jixiang told reporters after meeting Angola’s leader that his firm also wants to develop hydroelectric power ventures and noted that sports stadiums under construction by Sinohydro in the cities of Benguela and Lubango “will be delivered on schedule as agreed.”
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Mozambique: Cahora Bassa hydro to deliver power to Malawi 2008-12-19 Maputo, Mozambique, 19 Dec - The World Bank has made US$ 88 million available to the governments of Mozambique and Malawi to fund building of transmission lines to carry power from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam to the neighboring state, Maputo newspaper Noticias has reported. The project is part of a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) energy cooperation accord, Noticias said. The head of the electrification division of Mozambique’s EDM power utility, Luis Amado, said US$ 43 million of the World Bank funding is to be used for projects in Mozambique and the remaining US$ 45 million in Malawi. Work in Mozambique includes enlargement of the Matambo substation and building of transmission lines to the Malawian frontier, from where Malawi’s utility will construct a line to the Phombeya region, site of a planned new substation being built as part of the same project. The power transmission line will have an average capacity rating of 300 megawatts and it is expected that following the public tender for the venture the SADC-led project will get underway in 2009, or at the latest in 2010, When the new infrastructure is commissioned it will boost Mozambique’s position as one of the primary electricity exporters in the region at a time when the energy crisis demands increased cross-border cooperation to respond to potential negative impacts on development projects.
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Angola: Luanda airport to undergo major modernization 2008-12-19 Luanda, Angola, 19 Dec - Luanda’s 4th of December International Airport will benefit from a major overhaul while work on a new international airport in the capital is due to resume shortly, the Apostolado newspaper has reported. Work on Angola’s current main airport is being carried out by Somague of Portugal, the report said, in a contract valued at about US$ 74 million. This airport has a present capacity of only 1.2 million passengers yearly, considered insufficient for rising demand. The airport revamp, in which Brazil’s Odebrecht is also taking part, will give larger baggage handling areas and more check-in desks, as well as bigger departure lounges. The airports arrival and departure terminal building is also getting a makeover and parking lots are being enlarged. This modernization project is scheduled to take a year and intended as a stop-gap measure while Luanda’s new international airport is built. Work on the new airport, at the town of Bom Jesus, 40 kms from Luanda, will recommence soon, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said on a recent visit to the site.
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Mozambique: Govt proposes simplified tax system for small and micro-firms 2008-12-19 Maputo, Mozambique, 19 Dec - Mozambique’s parliament has approved a new bill aimed to simplify tax regimes for small and micro companies, the AIM news agency has reported. Under the proposals, any business or trader with an annual turnover of less than 2.5 million meticais (about US$ 100,000) can opt for the simplified regime to pay income and corporation tax and VAT. The simplified tax system (known as ISPC) is charged at 125,000 meticais a year in towns and 75,000 meticais a year in rural areas. Firms can instead choose to pay 5 percent of revenues in towns, or 3 percent if in the countryside. Presenting the bill to MPs, Finance Minister Manuel Chang said small and micro companies play a vital role by creating jobs and supplying products for markets to boost the economy’s competitiveness.
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Brazil: Galp Energia wins 8 Brazil oil blocs in partnership with Petrobras 2008-12-19 Lisbon, Portugal, 19 Dec - Galp Energia has won eight onshore oil exploration and production blocks in Brazil involving investments of 8.6 million reais in the 10th Auctioning Round of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP). In a statement sent to Lisbon’s CMVM securities market commission, Galp said five of the blocs are in the Potiguar development zone and will be operated with Brazilian state-controlled oil firm Petrobras in a 50/50 partnership. The consortium paid a total 8.6 million reais to buy the five blocs in an area of proven oil and gas reserves. Each bloc is 30 square kms in area. Galp has also been awarded another three blocs in the Amazon Basin in a new exploration zone with potential confirmed by seismic studies but still largely unconfirmed or with technical obstacles to overcome, added the statement. Galp and Petrobras paid 27.5 million reais to secure the rights to these blocs to be operated in a 40/60 partnership, respectively. These concessions will last a maximum seven years and lie in an area of 9,000 square kms. Galp, Partex and Angola’s Sonangol were among 47 firms to take part in the Brazilian exploration and production auction.
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Scheduled flights between Angola and China starting in 2009 2008-12-18 Beijing, China, 18 Dec – The two biggest airlines in Angola and China plan to organise scheduled flights between the two countries as of 2009, as part of a deal signed Thursday in Beijing. The agreement was one of four signed at the Great Palace of the People in the presence of Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos, and China’s President Hu Jintao, and which also included the areas of culture and economic and technical cooperation. The ceremony marked the second day of an official visit by dos Santos to China, which will continue until Friday, and whose delegation includes three ministers (Foreign Relations, Transport and Finance). According to Angolan sources, “there are Chinese people working in all 18 provinces of Angola,” and, this year, the embassy in Beijing has granted over 40,000 visas. Last Saturday, Angolan airline Taag launched a direct 13-hour flight between Luanda and Beijing, and according to the Angolan source, initially scheduled flights will be weekly. Due to its oil exports to China, Angola is now the country’s biggest economic partner in Africa. Large Chinese companies are involved in the Angolan national reconstruction programme, which has funding from Beijing estimated at US$5 billion. According to the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries, trade between Angola and China in the first nine months of the year totalled US$20.8 billion, or 126.2 percent more than in the same period of 2007.
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Sao Tome and Principe: Portugal announces more funds to boost cooperation in education and health 2008-12-18 Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe, 18 Dec – Portugal plans to provide a further 4 million euros in aid for cooperation in the areas of Sao tome Education and Health, as well as the Indicative Cooperation Programme (PIC), the Portuguese secretary of state for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation said Wednesday. João Gomes Cravinho, who is on an official visit to Sao Tome until Friday said that in the Education sector and at the request of the Sao Tome government, Lisbon would move ahead with a new 2 million-euro project over the next four years. According to Gomes Cravinho, this new project would deal with some of the most structural problems in Education in Sao Tome and Principe, particularly in terms of teacher training, working conditions in schools and access by students to the job market. In terms of Health, cooperation between the two countries will be boosted when Portugal sends specialised medical missions to the capital of Sao Tome, as part of the “Health for All,” project. Laos in the Health sector, the secretary of state announced, “a substantial boost,” of some 1.5 to 2 million euros for the next two years.
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Cape Verde: Business mission from Chinese municipality of Shenzhen to visit Mindelo to study investments 2008-12-17 S. Vicente, Cape Verde, 17 Dec – A delegation from the Chinese municipality of Shenzhen, on the border with Hong Kong, including businesspeople from the logistics, ports, fishing and information technology sectors, is due to visit the city of Mindelo in Cape Verde in 2009 to study the possibility of investing in the island of Sao Vicente, according to Cape Verdean newspaper Liberal. The Chambers of Sao Vicente and Shenzhen signed a cooperation programme during a visit by Isaura Gomes to the Chinese municipality outlining the exchange of information on investment opportunities, particularly in the fishing, logistics, ports, IT and communication and cultural sectors. The document also includes the municipality of S. Vicente providing assistance to Shenzhen investors to acquire land and, by providing incentives, will make the creation of Chinese investment projects easier in the established areas. The two municipalities also agreed to provide places for Sao Vicente students in educational facilities in Shenzhen, carry out exchange activities between the young people of the two municipalities, exchange experiences and train staff in the areas defined as a priority for cooperation.
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China: Angolan president in Beijing to boost cooperation 2008-12-16 Luanda, Angola, 16 Dec – The president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, arrived in Beijing Tuesday with a view to boosting Angola’s Chinese credit line currently estimated at US$5 billion, a Chinese diplomat told Angolan news agency Angop. The Business Attaché to the Chinese Embassy in Luanda, Wang Wei told ANgop that the two countries were working for cooperation, mainly in the areas fo infrastructure, transport, health and education, to be extended to other sectors. Wang Wei confirmed that the two countries were working on boosting the Chinese credit line but gave no further details. "We are working to widen the areas of cooperation, but that depends on studies and exchange of opinions between specialists from both countries. We have all the conditions for our interchange to be increasingly stronger," he said. The water sector in Angola, namely dams and supply networks, could be one of the areas in which China will carry out new investments, said sources close to the Angolan delegation accompanying the president on his four-day visit to Beijing, which is the second to the Chinese capital in less than five months. Angola is currently the biggest supplier of oil to China Angolan airline Taag Saturday launched twice weekly flights between Luanda and Beijing.
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Role of China in Africa similar to that of Japan in Asia, according to American expert 2008-12-15 Macau, China, 15 Dec – It is possible that China, just like Japan in East Asia, could be the main driving force for African development in the short term, according to Chinese politics expert Edward Friedman in Yale Global, a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, of Yale University. Friedman, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, says that China’s involvement with Africa could cause the continent's economy to grow according to the "flying geese" development model, an image used by many academics, because of their formation in flight, to explain Asia's post-war development, with Japan seen as the leading power. The “flying geese” paradigm maintains that the process of industrialization occurs in a pyramid formation, with one country as the leading power (at the top of the pyramid), followed by other, less advanced economies, followed by still less industrialized economies, each benefitting in their turn from the comparative advantages - namely labour costs – and receiving investment from economies on the level above. “China is hot-housing this flying-geese development. Beijing is investing money in Africa for everything from infrastructures to business ties," says Friedman, highlighting the role of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that China has started to create in Africa. “From these areas, economic dynamism will spread, as Africans are attracted by the SEZs. Governments will then build infrastructures and compete to attract the most successful businesses,” he said. Though he admits that, like Japan in post-war Asia, China is not interested in promoting democracy and human rights in Africa, acting on purely "economic imperatives", Friedman points out the economic benefits of Chinese efforts to lead this new band of geese. “From Beijing’s perspective, China in Africa in the 21st Century will be like Japan in East and Southeast Asia in the half century after the end of World War II...Plugging into the economic dynamo has its benefits.” Best practices are learned almost unconsciously. The advantages of the dynamic leader are spread throughout the countries following behind,” he said. For Edward Friedman, the process between China and Africa will intensify as the Chinese economy moves up the value-added ladder and as Chinese labour costs increase, pricing it out of lower-end markets. The solution is to transfer production to the “follower geese” whose economies will, in turn, also grow. “Africans who see China as a saviour could in fact benefit from joining China and following its lead," he said. Friedman highlights the ever greater number of Chinese emmigrating to Africa, taking with them the entrepreneurial spirit and ties to low-end factories looking to move to Africa in order to stay competitive, where salaries are lower. “There are already more Chinese than Portuguese in the former Portuguese colony of Angola,” says Friedman. Friedman does not deny the possibility that the role of China in Africa could have some negative consequences in the future, such as the exhaustion of natural resources or maintaining the corrupt elite in power, yet he generally believes in the benign consequences of the economic relations between the Chinese and African economies. “Africans are willing to give China the opportunity to reproduce in Africa the wealth-creating processes that made Asia the fastest growing region of the world since 1945,” he said. “Perhaps the Chinese and Africans are right and, as Japan transformed Asia, so too can China transform Africa,” concluded Edward Friedman.
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Angola: National airline Taag launches flights to Beijing 2008-12-15 Luanda, Angola, 15 Dec – Angolan airline TAAG Saturday launched direct flights to Beijing, a company spokesperson said. The charter flights will be offered twice a week with a Boeing 777-200 ER. A source from TAAG said that, if the route was profitable and the reaction to flights favourable, the airline would make the flights scheduled. Last year the Angolan authorities issued over 22,000 visas to Chinese citizens travelling to Angola. The new route was announced at the same time as Taag suspended its flights to Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, and Pointe Noire, in the Congo. Taag is currently banned from flying in European airspace due to safety issues. In November the Angolan government sacked teh company’s board of directors and announced the creation of a new airline to replace Taag. Taag’s losses in 2007 were in excess of US$70 million and the airline was 122nd of a list of 124 international airlines. Lufthansa, British Airways, Brussels Air, Air France, TAP - Air Portugal and South African Airways (SAA) fly to Angola weekly. As of 2009 US company Delta Airlines also plans to fly to Angola.
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