Africa-Press – Angola. Angolan businessmen have a “great opportunity” to intervene in the Lobito Corridor due to the gradual increase in direct and indirect services, said economist Henrique Pascoal this Friday.
The specialist warns that it is essential that they are efficient in their processes because of competition with their counterparts from neighboring countries such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Learning English and French will be an important element, as neighboring countries like Namibia and Zambia, to the south and east, speak English, while the DRC to the north, speaks French,” he said.
With the perspective of regional integration in the Development Community for the Development of Southern Africa (SADC), which aims to eliminate tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, Angolans will see their projects easier.
Henrique Pascoal pointed out, however, the current scenario of the Angolan business community, as being difficult because the banks have not been making life easier for the class, justifying that most of them do not meet the requirements for obtaining credit.
He said it was a situational problem and, when that happens, it becomes very difficult to invest in the local economy.
“What is the action of banks to make entrepreneurs understand what procedures they should follow to get credit for their businesses?”, he questioned.
For him, it is not enough to say that entrepreneurs do not meet the requirements, but to create conditions for them to have access, because it is through them that money is created in the economy.
“It is a paradox, because, in my opinion, banks are not concerned with granting credit to entrepreneurs because they provide services to large companies in the oil sector, which gives them a very high business portfolio and, on the other hand, their greatest client is the State itself”, he considered.
He made it known that it is necessary to reverse this situation so that the market works properly and for that there are mechanisms to correct it.
Henrique Pascoal defended the need for the State to create policies to “seriously bet on the local business community”, adding that “any country that intends to be competitive, its authorities must support its entrepreneurs”.
He gave the example of South Korea, which in the 1950s was underdeveloped, but the State invested in the naval industry, in technology, producing cars and ships and today it has become an industrial power.
“The State must empower entrepreneurs, especially those who already have the initiative to inject money into the economy so that they are able to compete with others, because otherwise, one or the other will prefer to look for other regions to invest their capital”, he warned. .
The main infrastructure of the Lobito Corridor is the Benguela Railway (CFB) and the Port of Lobito.
The railway movement from Lobito (Benguela) to Luau (Moxico), over a length of 1,344 kilometers, restarted in 2013 and constitutes, until now, the high point of the rehabilitation and modernization of the CFB, which had started in 2006, under the responsibility of Chinese businessmen from the CR-20.
The Port expansion project was launched by the Executive in February 2008, with the extension and modernization of the multipurpose pier (general cargo and containers), the Mining Terminal and the dry port.
ANGOP
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