Angola | Agricultural cooperation with Portugal considered

Angola and Portugal are identifying priority areas for cooperation in the agricultural sector, with a view to signing a two-year cooperation agreement, Portugal’s minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development said in Luanda.
Minister Luis Manuel Capoula Santos said at the end of a meeting on Monday with his counterpart in Angola, Afonso Pedro Canga, that priority projects were being identified as part of the institutional and business plan.
Capoula Santos said there will be two levels of institutional cooperation, one of which between ministries and a second between governments, and that the cooperation plans are expected to be fostered by providing scientific data, training and on a business level.
In the meeting with Canga, the Portuguese minister expressed Portugal’s readiness to hand over to Angola the bibliographic and scientific archive from the colonial period.
The archive includes technical, scientific and cartographic information on agricultural production and Angolan potential collected until 1975, during the Portuguese colonial period.
“Portugal has the largest scientific collection on Angola in terms of agriculture, so there is mutual benefit in collaborating with Portugal,” said Angola’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development. MDT/Macauhub

biocom plans output jump for 2020

Angolan company Biocom announced that it will produce 256,000 tonnes of sugar by 2020 which will provide 50 percent of the consumption needs of the Angolan population.
Biocom, which is owned by Brazilian company Odebrecht and Angola’s Cochan and Sonangol, this year expects to produce 47,000 tonnes of sugar, almost double the amount of the first harvest, according to state newspaper Jornal de Angola.
Biocom currently represents the largest private investment in Angola, outside of the oil sector. With an investment of USD750 million, Biocom is the also first Angolan company to produce white crystal sugar, ethanol and energy from biomass or bagasse from sugarcane.