Angola: more than 190 public companies to be listed on the Stock Exchange

More than 190 Angolan public companies will be privatised by being listed on the Stock Exchange this year to increase efficiency, the Ministry of Finance announced according to the local press’ reports. Among the 190 companies, 32 stand as high-profile entities owned by the Angolan state.

According to the Associate Coordinator of the Technical Committee of Privatisations of the Ministry of Finance of Angola, Patrício Vilares, the privatisation process of public companies is ongoing and will be compliant with norms and criteria laid down by Law. The list of companies, however, is not yet known.

Patrício Vilares said during the 6th ordinary meeting of the economic committee of the Council of Ministers that the privatisation program aims at “improving productivity”, involving companies with a greater economic impact to provide them with the “conditions for better competitiveness and dynamisation of the public sector”.

According to the Associate Coordinator, the government will privatise companies within the sectors of agriculture, industry, tourism, transports, telecommunications, finance and mining.

The economic committee of the Angolan government approved this programme of privatisations, targeting public companies in order to reduce state intervention in the economy. The goal is to promote private initiative, foreign investment and know-how acquisition.

In the same meeting, the committee discussed a proposal for altering the customs tariffs to protect national production and the local industry.

The Chairwoman of Tax Authority (AGT), Inalda Conceição, stated that the proposal is consensual and will be meeting the demands of various sectors of the economy.

The adjustment, Conceição guaranteed, will focus on 477 exported and imported products from and to Angola.

According to the Chairwoman, the objective of this proposal has to do with the “necessity of protecting the emerging local industry” and ensuring raw materials keep flowing to those emerging industries. Making Angolan products more competitive both in the internal and external markets is also a concern.

In that occasion, Idalina Conceição said that the proposal aggravated taxes on imports and exports of goods, whose national production is satisfactory, aiming at incentivising the investors to keep betting on producing them. Simultaneously, other products’ taxes were relieved. The most impacted sectors are Agriculture and Fishery.

Among other measures, the proposal also contemplated a decrease of 5% over the exportation of raw minerals as well as an exemption of taxes over private investment.