"The Angolan oil sector is in a bad way, but this is very specifically due to the dramatic drop in the price of a barrel, but it is much better prepared to recover, particularly if there is a recovery in demand for oil from the world economy," said the lawyer and founding partner of the law firm Miranda e Associados.
In an interview with Lusa about the economic crisis that the country is going through, the energy law specialist recalled that "two years ago the Government took a series of initiatives that led to a very substantial increase in investment in the sector and, in this way, not only was it possible to stabilise but also to increase production in recent months".
The oil industry, he added, "is better prepared to come out of the crisis, so help the world economic financial situation".
Where the outlook is not so encouraging is in the economic diversification, successively declared, but not always achieved by the authorities.
"Obviously there is a plan to diversify Angola's economy, but part of those plans has existed for a dozen years and it is lyricism to believe that this diversification will happen in the next two or three years," said Agostinho Pereira de Miranda.
The diversification, if there is, will focus on the exploitation of different natural resources, and not on areas that are usually referred to as natural, such as industry or construction.
"At the level of the different extractive industries, it is absolutely natural that there will be this diversification, particularly with the increase and research of other mineral resources, and I also believe that there are very interesting hypotheses in the sectors linked to the agri-food industry, which finally seems to have conditions to move forward", he stressed.
However, the lawyer of several oil companies operating in Angola added: "But I no longer believe so much that we will see in the next two or three years a significant change in manufacturing industries".
Where there is really good news, he pointed out, is in the natural gas sector, which the lawyer considered important for the future development of the national economy.
"Natural gas is most probably one of the great levers for diversification not only in the oil sector, but also in the Angolan industrial sector", Agostinho Pereira de Miranda stressed.
"In the last two years very significant advances have been made on the natural gas front, the Government has approved a series of incentives for gas exploration and production and, as a result, the construction, through a new consortium, of another natural gas liquefaction unit is planned and, on the other hand, the number of projects that will use natural gas, particularly for combined cycle power plants," he said.
Angola has reserves "quite interesting for Africa, worth perhaps a tenth of Mozambique", the great giant in this area in Southern Africa, concluded Pereira de Miranda.
