Africa-Press – Angola. The Angolan government and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) recently began a round of negotiations based on the creation of projects linked to infrastructure support for the Lobito Corridor, announced the director of this international organization, Stefan Kratzsch, Thursday in Luanda.
In statements, on the sidelines of the 10th Annual Meeting of African Special Economic Zones, which took place on Thursday, the UNIDO official clarified that the likely agreement will involve the organization’s intermediation in attracting international funding to expand support infrastructure along the Lobito Corridor.
“The main idea is to facilitate the implementation of industries along the Lobito Corridor and to enable them, for example, to refine minerals, as well as industrialize other products that will travel along this railway line,” he clarified.
Stefan Kratzsch stated that negotiations between the Angolan Government and UNIDO have already allowed for the creation of technical projects and contact with the World Bank, the multilateral Afreximbank, and other institutions necessary for the project’s implementation.
In parallel with the Lobito Corridor, the source assured that UNIDO has been providing technical support to the performance of economic zones in Africa, where the idea is to make them more sustainable.
Stefan Kratzsch also added that, within the framework of the Africa-Caribbean Economic Cooperation Project, promoted by the same United Nations agency, several African companies benefited from accumulated financing of around USD 53 million between 2021 and 2025.
“More recently, we have met with another 50 companies also linked to the productive sector, with this dialogue based on the search for better mechanisms to also benefit them from a financing line to expand their productivity,” he explained.
According to the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD), the continent has approximately 280 special economic zones, which together represent between 1% and 8% of the region’s Gross Domestic Product.
Constraints related to precariousness in the value chain of these zones, weaknesses in access, weak investment, and deficient public policies hinder the progress of these industrial projects, it concluded.
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