Cuito - The regional coordinator of the Credit Guarantee Fund (FGC), Maísa Bumba, on Monday in the central Bié Province, assessed the state of some local companies that have received public funding.
According to Maísa Bumba, who coordinates the provinces of Benguela, Huambo and Bié, the action aims to take a closer look at the reality of the entrepreneurs in the face of the grace period for loan repayments, depending on the projects.
To speed up the process, entrepreneurs, especially those from Bié and Huambo, can now travel to the city of Lobito, in Benguela Province, which has a branch of this organisation since last year.
To this end, Maísa Bumba urged entrepreneurs to work hard to make their companies eligible for any kind of public benefit within the programmes they operate.
The credit programmes include the Lines of Support for Sustainable Projects (LAPS), which includes companies in the agricultural, cattle breeding, fisheries, tourism and production sectors, which compete for funding of up to 200 million kwanzas.
There are also the Commercial Agriculture Development Projects (PDAC), which target micro, small and medium-sized companies and individual entrepreneurs, focusing on the production of maize, coffee, soya, cassava, sweet potatoes and reindeer, jam, eggs and chickens.
They can apply for funding of up to USD 1.5 million.
There is also the Production Support Guarantee (GAP) programme, which covers pig farming, artisanal, continental and sea fishing, tropical fruit, coffee, wheat, rice, flour, cotton and others, for up to five million dollars.
On the GJCC farm, for example, located in the town of Caquereua, in the Cunje commune, there is a 500 hectare field prepared for the production of wheat, soya, maize and beans.
Its owner, Gil Chindai, told ANGOP that to this end he had applied for phased funding of approximately 250 million kwanzas, an initial amount for the production of these cereals.
On an experimental basis, the farmer has also embarked on the production of cattle, goats and pigs, which he said have produced good results so far, judging by the levels of breeding.
There are currently 40 oxen in the corral, compared to the initial 20. As for the goats, he started with 100 and now has 350 animals.
At the AVIPAL farm, which produces eggs on a large scale, there is currently a lack of feed to feed the 25,720 laying hens.
Even so, the birds, distributed in two flocks, between young and old, produce 16,380 eggs a day.
According to the farm's head of production, Sebastião Chivinda, the levels are very low compared to previous ones.
The official, who did not say how much the company needed in loans, said that because of the shortage of feed, the birds are only fed twice a day, compared to four meals previously.
The director of the Economic and Integrated Office in Bié, Figueiredo Canguende Numbi, said that there are just over 15,000 economic agents in the province, of which more than a thousand have applied for the various public loans.
From the sorting done, he said that he had found around three hundred processes that are duly organised and already sent to the competent bodies for the subsequent steps at the Angolan Development Bank (BDA).
To date, more than 200 entrepreneurs have already received funding under the Integrated Rural Trade Development Programme (PIDCR).
However, Figueiredo Numbi promised to work more closely with all the beneficiaries in order to guide them to fulfil the government's goals, aimed at promoting local production.
LB/PLB/MRA/jmc
