About to inaugurate a new hotel in Saurimo, capital of the province of Lunda Sul, spokesperson Andra Queirós told Lusa how the group has grown since Trás-os-Montes businessman António Cunha arrived in Angola to explore business opportunities back in the 1980s.
Born in Caíde de Rei, Lousada, António Cunha always had the dream of owning his own business and founded his paint company in Portugal at the age of 18, a business already consolidated when he decided to come to Angola to evaluate the market.
With the peace agreement signed in 2002, the national reconstruction program designed to recover Angola from almost 30 years of civil war opened the doors to the world of civil construction for the businessman who, in the meantime, won his first project to stop ravines in Saurimo.
Saurimo was and is, like other Angolan cities, heavily buffeted by heavy tropical rains that open huge ravines in neighborhoods, roads and urban border areas, threatening homes and people and this type of work ends up becoming one of the focuses of the group's activity, until today.
"António Cunha opened companies as he identified market niches", said Andra Queirós. Restaurants, cinema-nightclubs, hotels, consultancies and travel agencies emerged, expanding the group to a total of 30 companies today.
The expansion was also geographical, with the group progressing, after Saurimo, to Dundo, in Lunda Norte, and five other provinces, but continuing with greater implantation in the eastern zone of Angola.
With an annual turnover of around 85 billion kwanzas (around 85 million euros), of which 70 to 80 percent are generated in construction activities, the group hopes to achieve similar turnover this year, as "the portfolio of works that sustains the activity, is always consistent".
Andra Queirós says that "things have improved since 2023" and that the objective is to reinvest.
"We want to believe that it will continue like this and that in the coming years we will continue reinvesting the money", she highlighted.
The Seven Studios aparthotel, 7Cunhas' most recent project, in Saurimo, which involved an investment of nine million dollars (8.33 million euros) of equity, is proof of this desire to invest in the province.
"The perspective is always the development of the province, if the province grows, we will also grow", she highlighted.
With 24 rooms and six apartments, the development is aimed at the business segment, to fill the existing housing shortage at a time when demand is intensifying.
"We realized that there was a lot of demand because of the diamond sector, Saurimo is currently a supply center for all this diamond production around Lunda Sul and also Lunda Norte", highlighted the group's leader.
Real estate is also in the 7Cunhas group's short-term plans, with a possible expansion of the existing condominium for a second phase.
