adminLUANDA. — Angola is investing in improved phone and wireless networks on land, sea and in space to attract foreign investment and diversify away from oil, National Director of Telecommunications Eduardo Sebastiao said.
The southwest African nation’s biggest projects include a US$300 million Russia-built satellite scheduled for 2017 and a US$200 million sub-sea cable across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil that will start to be laid next year, Sebastiao said in an interview in Luanda, the capital. Angola also wants to add fibre optic cable to increase mobile-phone coverage to 85 percent of the population from 60 percent within two years, Sebastiao said.
“We encourage international companies to join with local companies and we’re ready for investors to set up operations now,” the director of telecommunications said. “This will create not only financial wealth but social well-being through increased jobs and by fighting poverty.”
Angola, recovering from a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002, is rebuilding infrastructure to diversify away from the crude oil that accounts for 97 percent of exports and 75 percent of government tax revenue.
The government wants to promote opportunities in mining, industry and agriculture while improving the efficiency and competitiveness of its telecommunications industry.
Foreign investment this year in Angolan industries excluding oil was US$1,9 billion by the end of September, compared with US$2,3 billion for all of last year, Maria Luisa Abrantes, chairwoman of the National Private Investment Agency, said in an interview.
Four landline operators, including state-owned Angola Telecom and MS Telecom, a subsidiary of state oil company Sonangol EP, will be allowed to compete with mobile operators Movicel Telecommunications SA and Unitel SA in both landlines and mobiles as part of the investment plan, Sebastiao said. — Bloomberg.
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