These objectives are set out in the Industrial Development Plan of Angola (PDIA) 2025, publicly presented Tuesday in Luanda by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Victor Fernandes, after a consultation process that began in August 2020, with the full disclosure of the plan, before its approval by the President of the Republic.
At the PDIA presentation, the director-general of the Industrial Development Institute of Angola (IDIA), Dário Camati, emphasized that the State will, besides resorting to the General State Budget, dialogue with international partners to mobilize resources for the accomplishment of this plan.
Dário Camati pointed out that from the foreseen budget, infrastructures will receive the main share, with the allocation of 44.7 million dollars, for the improvement of the Viana Industrial Hub, in Luanda, with more than 300 companies installed, and the conclusion of the Fútila Industrial Hub, in Cabinda province.
For the industrial fabric, the fourth axis of PDIA, Dário Camati said, the planned budget is 25.4 million dollars, or 22 percent of the total.
The director-general of IDIA also said that various feasibility studies were planned, at an average cost of 50,000 dollars each, construction of the gate, reception and earth moving of the four poles with companies already set up, at an average cost of 5 million dollars each, construction of new rural industrial parks, namely the Rural Industrial Park of Quibaxi, Calenga, Maquela do Zombo, Andulo, Cachiungo, Waku-Kungo and Dala, expected to cost around 8.3 million dollars.
According to Dário Camati, in axis 4, the main costs are associated to support programs for micro, small and medium enterprises, which is around 6.55 million dollars, the identification, analysis and launch of large priority projects in the industrial sector, with around 2.7 million dollars for studies; road shows; identification of partners and launch of tenders; and the improvement and development of the national system of conformity assessment and certification, which provides for a budget of 3.6 million dollars.
In his speech, the Minister of Industry and Commerce referred that with the PDIA, the State reaffirms its commitment to industrial development, meeting the demands of micro and small companies, which can respond increasingly to the demand for goods by the population, medium-sized companies, which concentrate specific productions, some of which require inputs not yet available in the country, and large companies.
"PDIA is organized in four intervention axes, according to the dimensions of the functioning of industrial companies: institutional and regulatory environment, human capital, location infrastructures, and business ecosystem, 15 sub-programs, 50 actions, and several tasks," the minister pointed out.
Dário Camati stressed that the sector continues to present challenges in terms of the institutional and regulatory environment of the activity, stressing that the legal and regulatory framework that currently exists "still does not satisfy the development of the industry in the mold that is desired to achieve the objectives of 'doing business'".
"We also have institutional practices, or even institutional capacities to be improved, at the level of attendance and service provision to industrialists, to the business community, the main actors in industrial activity," he said in statements to the press.
Human capital, with respect to technical quality and behavioral or cultural problems, also represent challenges for the sector, followed by the business ecosystem.
"The most critical, and which demands more creativity on our part, is the one related to infrastructure. The infrastructures of industrial location that we have today are of three types, the poles of industrial development, the rural industrial parks, and the special economic zones, but we have a framework where we cannot evolve much in the structuring of industrial location," he said.
The plan has as goals to increase the current weight of 6.6 percent in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 9 percent by 2025 and to go from the current 144 percent weight of imports of industrial products in the GDP to 130 percent in the next four years.
Until 2018, there were 2873 companies operating in the manufacturing sector in Angola, with a reduction in the following years of 90 percent for micro and small companies, 8 percent for medium-sized companies and 2 percent for large companies.
The statistics released at the session also indicate that 80 percent of industrial companies in operation, until 2018, were concentrated in Luanda, the country's capital, and in four provinces in the western half of the territory, namely Benguela, Huíla, Cabinda, Huambo and Kwanza Sul.
Meanwhile, the Angola Expenditure, Revenue and Employment Survey (IDREA) 2018-2019, also cited in the PDIA presentation, pointed to 411,698 people employed in the industry sector.
The preparation of the PDIA involved the various services and institutes related to industrial development in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and was prepared in a very participatory manner, through an extensive consultation process of entrepreneurs and managers of industrial companies, various ministerial departments, the financial sector, international entities, among others.