The minister highlighted the role of the Caála Logistics Platform, in the province of Huambo, which will be managed by the Dutch consortium Flying Swans and is expected to begin operating next year.
"The focus of this investment is the purchase of fruit and vegetables in that area. But they are not only concerned with purchasing, they will also train medium-sized producers and small family producers, providing them with techniques for soil preparation, production and treatment, so that the final product is of high quality", he told the Lusa news agency.
Calumbo said that 30 to 40 percent of the production of certain goods by some of the smaller producers ends up being spoiled due to the lack of logistics and transport infrastructure to allow distribution to consumers.
The Logistics Platform, he stressed, will allow "the scale of production of these families, these companies, to be increased, so that they can then export to the Netherlands".
"We are talking about jobs, we are talking about a different scale from our national production, we are talking about exports", he stated.
Recently, the Angolan Agricultural Association (AAPA), the company Westfalia and Flying Swans signed an agreement to create a cold storage centre for the export of avocados produced by small and medium-sized producers in the region.
The Secretary of State recalled that Angola is the largest producer of bananas in Africa and seventh worldwide, producing around four million tonnes per year, and grows rice, cereals, citrus fruits and has the potential to develop other fruits.
Calumbo was speaking on the sidelines of the Africa 2024 Summit organised by the Financial Times newspaper, which dedicated a session to the Lobito Corridor, a strategic railway infrastructure of over 1300 kilometres that crosses Angola, connecting the port of Lobito to Zambia, and also crossing the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo).
