![GDP per capita development of Angola](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/GDP_per_capita_development_of_Angola.svg)
The economy of
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
remains heavily influenced by the effects of four decades of conflict in the last part of the 20th century, the
war for independence from Portugal (1961–75) and the subsequent
civil war (1975–2002). Despite extensive
oil and gas
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and combustion, burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, petroleum, oil, and natura ...
resources, diamonds,
hydroelectric
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...
potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on
subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
. Since 2002, when the 27-year civil war ended, government policy prioritized the repair and improvement of infrastructure and strengthening of political and social institutions. During the first decade of the 21st century, Angola's economy was one of the fastest-growing in the world,
[Birgitte Refslund Sørensen and Marc Vincent. ''Caught Between Borders: Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced'', 2001. Page 17.] with reported annual average GDP growth of 11.1 percent from 2001 to 2010. High international oil prices and rising oil production contributed to strong economic growth, although with high inequality, at that time.
Corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
is rife throughout the economy and the country remains heavily dependent on the oil sector, which in 2017 accounted for over 90 percent of exports by value and 64 percent of government revenue. With the end of the oil boom, from 2015 Angola entered into a period of economic contraction.
History
The Angolan economy has been dominated by the production of raw materials and the use of cheap labor since
European rule began in the sixteenth century.
The Portuguese used Angola principally as a source for the thriving
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
across the Atlantic;
Luanda
Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport ...
became the greatest slaving port in Africa.
After the Portuguese Empire abolished the slave trade in Angola in 1858, it began using
concessional agreements, granting exclusive rights to a private company to exploit land, people, and all other resources within a given territory.
In
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
, this policy spawned a number of companies notorious for their exploitation of local labor.
But in Angola, only
Diamang showed even moderate success.
At the same time, Portuguese began emigrating to Angola to establish farms and plantations (''
fazendas'') to grow
cash crop
A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...
s for export.
Although these farms were only partially successful before
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, they formed the basis for the later economic growth.
The principal exports of the post-slave economy in the 19th century were rubber, beeswax, and ivory. Prior to the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, exportation of coffee,
palm
Palm most commonly refers to:
* Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand
* Palm plants, of family Arecaceae
**List of Arecaceae genera
* Several other plants known as "palm"
Palm or Palms may also refer to:
Music
* Palm (ba ...
kernels and
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
, cattle, leather and
hides, and
salt fish joined the principal exports, with small quantities of gold and cotton also being produced. Grains, sugar, and rum were also produced for local consumption. The principal imports were foodstuffs, cotton goods, hardware, and British coal. Legislation against foreign traders was implemented in the 1890s. The territory's prosperity, however, continued to depend on plantations worked by labor "indentured" from the interior.
Before World War II, the Portuguese government was concerned primarily with keeping its colonies self-sufficient and therefore invested little capital in Angola's local economy.
It built no roads until the mid-1920s, and the first railroad, the
Benguela Railway, was not completed until 1929.
Between 1900 and 1940, only 35,000 Portuguese emigrants settled in Angola, and most worked in commerce in the cities, facilitating trade with Portugal.
In the rural areas, Portuguese settlers often found it difficult to make a living because of fluctuating world prices for
sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
and
sisal
Sisal (, ) (''Agave sisalana'') is a species of flowering plant native to southern Mexico, but widely cultivated and naturalized in many other countries. It yields a stiff fibre used in making rope and various other products. The term sisal ma ...
and the difficulties in obtaining cheap labor to farm their crops.
As a result, they often suspended their operations until the market prices rose and instead marketed the produce of Angolan farmers.
But in the wake of World War II, the rapid growth of
industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
worldwide and the parallel requirements for raw materials led Portugal to develop closer ties with its colonies and to begin actively developing the Angolan economy.
In the 1930s, Portugal started to develop closer trade ties with its colonies, and by 1940 it absorbed 63 percent of Angolan exports and accounted for 47 percent of Angolan imports, up from 39 percent and 37 percent, respectively, a decade earlier.
When the price of Angola's principal crops—coffee and sisal—jumped after the war, the Portuguese government began to reinvest some profits inside the country, initiating a series of projects to develop infrastructure.
During the 1950s, Portugal built
dam
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...
s,
hydroelectric power stations
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...
, and transportation systems.
In addition, Portuguese citizens were encouraged to emigrate to Angola, where planned settlements (''colonatos'') were established for them in the rural areas.
Finally, the Portuguese initiated
mining operations for
iron ore
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...
,
manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
, and
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
to complement industrial activities at home, and in 1955 the first successful
oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may ...
s were drilled in Angola.
By 1960 the Angolan economy had been completely transformed, boasting a successful commercial agricultural sector, a promising mineral and petroleum production enterprise, and an incipient manufacturing industry.
Yet by 1976, these encouraging developments had been reversed.
The economy was in complete disarray in the aftermath of the
war of independence
This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars). These wars may or may not have been successful in achieving a goal of independence.
List
See also
* Lists of active separatist movements
* List of civil wars
* List o ...
and the subsequent internal fighting of the liberation movements.
According to the ruling
MPLA-PT
The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, abbr. MPLA), for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (), is an Angolan left-wing, social d ...
, in August 1976 more than 80 percent of the agricultural plantations had been abandoned by their Portuguese owners; only 284 out of 692 factories continued to operate; more than 30,000 medium-level and high-level managers, technicians, and skilled workers had left the country; and 2,500 enterprises had been closed (75 percent of which had been abandoned by their owners).
Furthermore, only 8,000 vehicles remained out of 153,000 registered, dozens of bridges had been destroyed, the trading network was disrupted, administrative services did not exist, and files and studies were missing.
Angola's economic ills can also be traced to the legacy of Portuguese colonial development.
Many of the white settlers had come to Angola after 1950 and were understandably quick to repatriate during the war of independence.
During their stay, however, these settlers had appropriated Angolan lands, disrupting local peasant production of cash and subsistence crops.
Moreover, Angola's industries depended on trade with Portugal—the colony's overwhelmingly dominant trade partner—for both markets and machinery.
Only the petroleum and diamond industries boasted a wider clientele for investment and markets.
Most important, the Portuguese had not trained Angolans to operate the larger industrial or agricultural enterprises, nor had they actively educated the population.
Upon independence Angola thus found itself without markets or expertise to maintain even minimal economic growth.
As a result, the government intervened, nationalizing most businesses and farms abandoned by the Portuguese.
It established state farms to continue producing coffee, sugar, and sisal, and it took over the operations of all factories to maintain production.
These attempts usually failed, primarily because of the lack of experienced managers and the continuing disruptions in rural areas caused by the
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for ...
insurgency.
Only the petroleum sector continued to operate successfully, and by 1980 this sector had helped the gross domestic product reach US$3.6 billion, its highest level up to 1988.
In the face of serious economic problems and the continuing war throughout the countryside, in 1987 the government announced plans to liberalize economic policies and promote private investment and involvement in the economy.
1990s
United Nations Angola Verification Mission III
The United Nations Angola Verification Mission III was a peacekeeping mission that began operating in Angola in February 1995 during the civil war.Meisler, Stanley. ''United Nations: The First Fifty Years'', 1997. Page 369. It was established by t ...
and
MONUA
The United Nations Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA, Mission d'Observation des Nations Unies à l'Angola) was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1118 of 30 June 1997. Due to the collapse of the peace process in Angola, UN ...
spent US$1.5 billion overseeing implementation of the
Lusaka Protocol
The Lusaka Protocol, initialed in Lusaka, Zambia on October 31, 1994, attempted to end the Angolan Civil War by integrating and disarming UNITA and starting national reconciliation. Both sides signed a truce as part of the protocol on November 15 ...
, a 1994 peace accord that ultimately failed to end the civil war. The protocol prohibited
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for ...
from buying foreign arms, a provision the United Nations largely did not enforce, so both sides continued to build up their stockpile. UNITA purchased weapons in 1996 and 1997 from private sources in Albania and Bulgaria, and from Zaire, South Africa, Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Togo, and Burkina Faso. In October 1997 the UN imposed travel sanctions on UNITA leaders, but the UN waited until July 1998 to limit UNITA's exportation of diamonds and freeze UNITA bank accounts. While the U.S. government gave US$250 million to UNITA between 1986 and 1991, UNITA made US$1.72 billion between 1994 and 1999 exporting diamonds, primarily through Zaire to Europe. At the same time the Angolan government received large amounts of weapons from the governments of Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, and South Africa. While no arms shipment to the government violated the protocol, no country informed the U.N. Register on Conventional Weapons as required.
[Vines, Alex. ''Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process'', 1999. Human Rights Watch.]
Despite the increase in civil warfare in late 1998, the economy grew by an estimated 4% in 1999. The government introduced new currency denominations in 1999, including a 1 and 5 kwanza note.
2000s
An economic reform effort was launched in 1998. Angola ranked 160 of 174 nations in the
United Nations Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
in 2000.
In April 2000 Angola started an
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
(IMF) Staff-Monitored Program (SMP). The program formally lapsed in June 2001, but the IMF remains engaged. In this context the Government of Angola has succeeded in unifying exchange rates and has raised fuel, electricity, and water rates. The Commercial Code, telecommunications law, and Foreign Investment Code are being modernized. A privatization effort, prepared with
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
assistance, has begun with the
BCI bank. Nevertheless, a legacy of fiscal mismanagement and corruption persists. The civil war
internally displaced
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
A ...
3.8 million people, 32% of the population, by 2001.
The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in large-scale increases in agriculture production.
Angola produced over of diamonds in 2003,
and production was expected to grow to per year by 2007. In 2004, China's Eximbank approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola to rebuild infrastructure. The economy grew 18% in 2005 and growth was expected to reach 26% in 2006 and stay above 10% for the rest of the decade. By 2020, Angola had a national debt of $76 billion, of which $20 billion is to China.
The construction industry is taking advantage of the growing economy, with various housing projects stimulated by the government initiatives for example the ''Angola Investe'' program and the ''
Casa Feliz'' or ''
Meña'' projects. Not all public construction projects are functional. A case in point:
Kilamba Kiaxi
Quilamba Quiaxi, also spelled as Kilamba Kiaxi, is an city and one of nine municipalities that make up the province of Luanda in Angola. In the Kimbundu language the name means ''Land (Kiaxi) of Kilamba''.
According to the population projections ...
, where a whole new satellite town of Luanda, consisting of housing facilities for several hundreds of thousands of people, was completely uninhabited for over four years because of skyrocketing prices, but completely sold out after the government decreased the original price and created mortgage plans at around the election time thus made it affordable for middle-class people.
ChevronTexaco started pumping from Block 14 in January 2000, but production decreased to in 2007 due to poor-quality oil.
Angola joined the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, ) is a cartel of countries. Founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela), it has, since 1965, been headquart ...
on January 1, 2007.
Cabinda Gulf Oil Company found Malange-1, an oil reservoir in Block 14, on August 9, 2007.
[
]
Overview
Despite its abundant natural resources, output per capita is among the world's lowest. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for 85% of the population. Oil production and the supporting activities are vital to the economy, contributing about 45% to GDP and 90% of exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed in late-2005 and which is expected to grow to by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in
Sonangol Group
Group Sonangol ( pt, Grupo Sonangol) is a parastatal that formerly oversaw petroleum and natural gas production in Angola. The group consisted of Sonangol E.P. ( pt, Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola, E.P.) and its many subsidiaries. ...
, a conglomerate owned by the Angolan government. With revenues booming from oil exports, the government has started to implement ambitious development programs to build roads and other basic infrastructure for the nation.
In the last decade of the colonial period, Angola was a major African food exporter but now imports almost all its food. Severe wartime conditions, including extensive planting of landmines throughout the countryside, have brought agricultural activities to a near-standstill. Some efforts to recover have gone forward, however, notably in fisheries. Coffee production, though a fraction of its pre-1975 level, is sufficient for domestic needs and some exports. Expanding oil production is now almost half of GDP and 90% of exports, at . Diamonds provided much of the revenue for
Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (; 3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary politician and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA waged a guerrilla war agai ...
's
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for ...
rebellion through illicit trade. Other rich resources await development: gold, forest products, fisheries, iron ore, coffee, and fruits.
This is a chart of trend of
nominal
Nominal may refer to:
Linguistics and grammar
* Nominal (linguistics), one of the parts of speech
* Nominal, the adjectival form of "noun", as in "nominal agreement" (= "noun agreement")
* Nominal sentence, a sentence without a finite verb
* Nou ...
gross domestic product of Angola at market prices using International Monetary Fund data;
figures are in millions of units.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017. Inflation below 5% is in green.
Agriculture
Angola produced, in 2018:
* 8.6 million tons of
cassava
''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively ...
(8th largest producer in the world);
* 3.5 million tons of
banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...
(7th largest producer in the world, or the 10th largest, if we consider together with
plantain
Plantain may refer to:
Plants and fruits
* Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking
** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa''
* ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...
);
* 2.2 million tons of
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
;
* 1.2 million tons of
sweet potato
The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...
(10th largest producer in the world);
* 806 thousand tons of
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
;
* 597 thousand tons of
pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...
(13th largest producer in the world);
* 572 thousand tons of
sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
;
* 355 thousand tons of
cabbage
Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...
;
* 314 thousand tons of
beans
A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
;
* 280 thousand tons of
palm oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced from ...
;
* 154 thousand tons of
peanut
The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...
;
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, like
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
(16 thousand tons).
Foreign trade
Exports in 2004 reached US$10,530,764,911. The vast majority of Angola's exports, 92% in 2004, are petroleum products. US$785 million worth of diamonds, 7.5% of exports, were sold abroad that year.
Nearly all of Angola's oil goes to the United States, in 2006, making it the eighth largest supplier of oil to the United States, and to China, in 2006. In the first quarter of 2008, Angola became the main exporter of oil to China.
The rest of its petroleum exports go to Europe and Latin America.
U.S. companies account for more than half the investment in Angola, with Chevron-Texaco leading the way. The U.S. exports industrial goods and services, primarily oilfield equipment, mining equipment, chemicals, aircraft, and food, to Angola, while principally importing petroleum. Trade between Angola and South Africa exceeded US$300 million in 2007.
From the 2000s, many Chinese have settled and started up businesses.
Resources
Petroleum
![Tree map export 2009 Angola](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Tree_map_export_2009_Angola.jpeg)
Angola produces and exports more petroleum than any other nation in
sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
, surpassing
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
first in the
2000s, then in 2022. In January 2007 Angola became a member of
OPEC
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, ) is a cartel of countries. Founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela), it has, since 1965, been headquart ...
. Under the Lourenço since 2017, the country has made efforts to incentive investments and reverse declining production, resulting in fresh investments made by international oil companies.
Chevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...
,
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies SE is a French Multinational corporation, multinational integrated energy and List of oil exploration and production companies, petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven Big Oil, supermajor oil companies. Its businesses ...
.,
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
,
Eni, and
BP all operate in the country and represent a vast majority of daily productio.
[Tvedten, Inge. ''Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction'', 1997. Page 82.]
Block 17, operated by TotalEnergies, is Angola's biggest producing asset and is known as the Golden Block. The French major is currently executing several subsea tieback projects there, including CLOV 3 and Begonia, whose final investment decisions (FIDs) were taken in 2022.
The United Nations has criticized the Angolan government for using torture, rape,
summary execution
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
s, arbitrary detention, and disappearances, actions which Angolan government has justified on the need to maintain oil output.
[Omeje, Kenneth C. ''High Stakes And Stakeholders: Oil Conflict And Security in Nigeria'', 2006. Page 157.]
Angola is the third-largest trading partner of the United States in Sub-Saharan Africa, largely because of its petroleum exports.
[United States Congress. ''Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations for 1998: Hearings'', 1997. Page 269.] The U.S. imports 7% of its oil from Angola, about three times as much as it imported from
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
just prior to the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
in 1991. The U.S. Government has invested US$4 billion in Angola's petroleum sector.
[Vines, Alex. ''Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process'', 1999. Human Rights Watch. Page 189.]
Oil makes up over 90% of Angola's exports.
Diamonds
Angola is the third largest producer of diamonds in Africa and has only explored 40% of the diamond-rich territory within the country, but has had difficulty in attracting foreign investment because of corruption, human rights violations, and diamond smuggling.
Production rose by 30% in 2006 and
Endiama
Endiama E.P. (''Empresa Nacional de Diamantes E.P.'') is the national diamond company of Angola and it is the exclusive concessionary of mining rights in the domain of diamonds. Angola's state-run diamond company Endiama produced 8.55 million car ...
, the national diamond company of Angola, expects production to increase by 8% in 2007 to 10 million carats annually. The government is trying to attract foreign companies to the
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...
of
Bié,
Malanje
Malanje is the capital city of Malanje Province in Angola, with a population of 455,000 (2014 census), and a municipality, with a population of 506,847 (2014 census). Projected to be the thirteenth fastest growing city on the African continent be ...
and
Uíge
Uíge ( kg, Wizidi), formerly Carmona, is a provincial capital city in northwestern Angola, with a population of 322,531 (2014 census), and a municipality, with a population of 519,196 (2014 census), located in the province of the same name. I ...
.
[
]
The Angolan government loses $375 million annually from diamond smuggling. In 2003, the government began Operation Brilliant, an anti-smuggling investigation that arrested and deported 250,000 smugglers between 2003 and 2006.
Rafael Marques, a journalist and human rights activist, described the diamond industry in his 2006 ''Angola's Deadly Diamonds'' report as plagued by "murders, beatings, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations." Marques called on foreign countries to boycott Angola's "
conflict diamonds
''Blood Diamond'' is a 2006 American political war action thriller film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mi ...
".
[
] In December 2014, the
Bureau of International Labor Affairs
The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) is an operating unit of the United States Department of Labor which manages the department's international responsibilities. According to its mission statement:
''“The Bureau of International La ...
issued a ''
List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor The ''List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor'' is an annual publication issued by the United States Government’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor. It has been published within the December 2014 D ...
'' that classified Angola as one of the major diamond-producing African countries relying on both child labor and forced labor. The
U.S. Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the United States federal executive departments, executive departments of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of fede ...
reported that "there is little publicly available information on
ngola'sefforts to enforce child labor law". Diamonds accounted for 1.48% of Angolan exports in 2014.
Iron
Under Portuguese rule,
Angola
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began mining iron in 1957, producing 1.2 million tons in 1967 and 6.2 million tons by 1971. In the early 1970s, 70% of Portuguese Angola's iron exports went to Western Europe and Japan.
After independence in 1975, the
Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War ( pt, Guerra Civil Angolana) was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war immediately began after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. The war was ...
(1975–2002) destroyed most of the territory's mining infrastructure. The redevelopment of the Angolan mining industry started in the late 2000s.
See also
*
Banco Espírito Santo Angola
*
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA or ECA; french: link=no, Commission économique pour l'Afrique, CEA) was established in 1958 by the United Nations Economic and Social Council to encourage economic cooperation among its ...
References
Further reading
*McCormick, Shawn H. ''The Angolan Economy: Prospects for Growth in a Postwar Environment'', 1994.
*OECD, International Energy Agency. ''Angola: Towards an Energy Strategy'', 2006.
*
External links
*
MBendi overview of AngolaAngola latest trade data on ITC Trade MapExports to Angola Datasheet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Economy Of Angola
Angola
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Blood diamonds
Angola
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Angola
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