Angola: Agri State Secretary reveals strategies to reduce food imports

The State Secretary for Agriculture José Bettencourt said in Angola’s capital, Luanda on April 1 that he believes that betting on national production will reduce the requirement to import food, with annual costs of around USD 3.5 billion.

In order to achieve this goal, he said, Angola needs to improve some factors that negatively impact on the costs of domestic production. Bettencourt mentioned the sectors of energy, water, human income, the poor state of the roads, infrastructure and credit, as some factors that make national production unfeasible.

The State Secretary was speaking at the meeting attended by French entrepreneurs operating in the agro-industrial sector in Angola, as part of the visit by French Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume to Angola. "We have to look inside, protecting domestic production, but our cost of production is quite high," he said.

As for the bank credit to the agricultural sector, he admitted not to be the most ideal, noting that the Ministry of Agriculture is working to make it (credit) specific, looking at crops one by one and not them as a whole. "This programme of credit to the sector will merit improvements throughout this year, due to the work being done in favour of national production," he assured.

The Secretary of State for Agriculture invited French businessmen to invest in Angola, focusing mainly on the production of corn, soybeans, beans, among others, as a priority for the National Development Programme.

The issue of support for technical and vocational training, the need for training of staff for the labour market, scientific research, were among other issues raised at this meeting that was attended by the French Minister of Agriculture.

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