Vietnam, Angola strive for further investment ties

Vietnamese businesses that are interested in operating in Angola will be assisted to access the African country in the coming time, thus helping boost investments between the two nations.

This is the outcome of a Vietnam-Angola trade and investment seminar in Hanoi on December 10 co-organised by the Vietnam-Africa Cooperative Friendship Association and the Vietnamese Embassy in Angola with the participation of nearly 50 Vietnamese enterprises.

Opening the event, Le Duong Quang, the Association’s President, said trade between Vietnam and Angola reached 125 million USD in 2012.

Recently, many Vietnamese companies have poured investment into Angola, focusing on oil and gas and construction, under joint venture contracts, he added.

Over the past years, the Southeast Asian country has dispatched a drove of experts in education, healthcare, agriculture and accounting to Angola, Quang said, adding that about 300 Vietnamese experts are working there.

The 60,000 overseas Vietnamese in Angola work as a bridge linking the two countries’ businesses, he added.

Angolan Ambassador to Vietnam Joan Manuel Bernardo briefed the seminar on the socio-economic and natural conditions of his country, which lies along the western coast of Africa with an area of 1,246,700sq.km and a population of around 20 million people.

He also introduced Angola’s law as well as its national reconstruction programme and national development plan for the 2013-2017 period.

The ambassador commented on nine areas that are listed in the country’s private investment promotion strategy, including agriculture and breeding, infrastructure; processing industry; industry and fisheries; hotels and tourism; social housing; education and healthcare, telecommunications and information-technology; electricity and water.

Angola has offered a range of incentives in land, credit and procedures to attract domestic and foreign investors in such realms, he added.

At the seminar, Vietnamese Ambassador to Angola Do Ba Khoa also presented opportunities and challenges in the African country.