The Republic of Angola yesterday celebrated 46 years of National Independence.
It was on November 11, 1975, that the then leader of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Dr. Antonio Agostinho Neto, proclaimed before Africa and the world, the independence of Angola from the Portuguese colonial rule.
Angola is a country in southern Africa, bordered by the Democratic Republics of Congo (DRC), to the north and east, Zambia to the east and Namibia to the south and to the west bathed by the Atlantic Ocean. In its 1 246 700 km2 of territorial extension, lives a population of 30 000 000 inhabitants, distributed among 18 provinces.
The official language of Angola is Portuguese.
The recent history of Angola starts with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483, period in which the Portuguese occupation and colonization began, lasting about 500 years, ending with the proclamation of independence on the 11th of November 1975, after a long national liberation struggle, triggered by the main liberation movements with emphasis on the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), which due to disagreements in relation to the management of the post-colonial country, unleashed a civil war that lasted about 27 years, ending only on the 4th of April 2002, with the signing of the Peace Accords.
With the achievement and consolidation of peace and under the leadership of the then President of the Republic José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola entered a phase of national reconstruction, economic recovery and social development, making several investments in health, education, housing, transportation and communication.
Between 2006 and 2007 Angola registered a growth of 18,6 percent and 26,4 percent, respectively, making its economy one of the fastest growing economies on the planet, largely due to the demand for oil worldwide but also in other sectors of the economy especially in mining where diamonds stand out.
In 2017 the country held presidential and legislative elections for the third time, culminating in the victory of the current President of the Republic, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço and his party (MPLA).
However, starting in 2014, the country’s economy declined due to the falling price of oil, the only resource (commodity) responsible for attracting revenue from the country in the international market, a situation that was exacerbated by the outbreak of the global pandemic of the new Coronavirus (Covid-19) in 2019.
The Republic of Angola and its congenerous of Zimbabwe enjoy excellent relations of cooperation that remount from the decades of 1975/1980 that corresponds with the fight of liberation of the two countries. It is memorable at that time the speech made by the
First President of the Republic of Angola Agostinho Neto, that “in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa is the continuation of our struggle,” which meant that the independence of Angola was not complete while the people of those countries including Zimbabwe were under colonial rule.
In 1982, the two countries signed a cooperation agreement in several areas of common interest. With the program to diversify its economy and attract direct foreign investment,
Angola revised its private investment law in order to attract foreign entrepreneurs as well as Zimbabweans interested in investing in various sectors of the economy.
In this sense we highlight the presence of a Zimbabwean company (Baobab Group) based in Bulawayo, which is investing in the textile industry sector in the provinces of Benguela and Kwanza Norte.