The Portuguese trade balance with Angola has hit its lowest point since 2010 with less than €1.6 billion in goods exported last year, a year-on-year drop of over 30% but Portuguese businesses are still keen to trade.
Oil imports from Angola to Portugal also dropped, by 22%, but "Things can only get better," according to a group of 17 Portuguese businesses taking part in the Angola-Portugal Business Forum in Luanda this week, organised by the Portuguese Business Association, (AEP).
Most of these 17 companies already operate in the Angolan market and have been hard hit by the country’s economic decline which in turn has been based on the dwindling oil price, Angola's leading export.
These Portuguese businesses want to stick with Angola, even though times are hard and aim to set up partnerships to access the Angolan economy.
The business forum aims also to "counter the climate of pessimism that has existed in the Angolan market," as emphasised the president of AEP, Paulo Nunes de Almeida, who has every faith that "2017 will be the year of recovery of the Angolan economy, benefiting from the rise in the price of oil and opening a new cycle of opportunities for Portuguese companies.”
One of the ways that Angola’s president, José dos Santos (pictures above), has become a billionaire at the expense of his impoverished nation is by allowing access to foreign companies on receipt of illicit payments, backhanders, commissions and royalties. The other is by diverting oil royalty payments that should have gone to the Angolan treasury.
Portugal’s companies will be aware of the price of doing business in this former colony and of the cost of becoming drawn in to the web of deceit and corruption that characterises the Angolan business scene.
The current mood is not good between the countries with one of Angola’s State-controlled newspapers, Jornal de Angola, claiming that "Portugal is preparing to carry out a mass interference in this year's general elections in Angola."
After an extensive review of the US electoral process and criticism of Barack Obama's eight years of leadership, the article ends with further commentary, “with the help of former settlers, apartheid servants, international finance, fake journalists, TV channels and rogue revolutionaries, a diabolical plan is under way."
"It might not be bad to follow the lessons of the past and the example of Trump. Let the Angolans themselves decide on their destinies," the influential editorial concluded.
Angola has scheduled general elections, both presidential and legislative, for August 2017.
The country has been led since 1979 by José Eduardo dos Santos, who said that he will step down from politics in 2018.
His daughter, Isabel dos Santos, often referred to as ‘the richest woman in Africa,’ so far has stated that she has no interest in domestic politics despite her father’s political power allowing her preferential access to protected markets.
Isabel dos Santos is revered in Lisbon, and the corruption in Angola downplayed, as she now has big stakes in many of Portugal’s top companies.
Detractors say these investments have been an easy way to launder money from illicit payments in Angola where billions in oil-related royalty payments have gone missing during José dos Santos’ regime of oppression.
Should Isabel dos Santos choose to follow her father and lead Angola, Portugal's government would be welcoming as she would be easier to deal with than any new political leader likely to expose decades of corrupt practices endemic to this African country.
