Washington - Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço, is since Wednesday in Washington DC, United States of America, for a meeting with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, thus marking the beginning of a new era in relations between Angola and the USA.
This will be the first time that the Angolan Head of State will be received in the White House since he took office in 2017, an act that is seen as the opening of great expectations about the new directions of bilateral cooperation.
For the meeting scheduled for Thursday, João Lourenço, who is accompanied by the First Lady of the Republic, Ana Dias Lourenço, has an agenda with various issues related to the reforms implemented by his government, with an emphasis on new investment opportunities for Angola in different fields.
It should be noted that this meeting is taking place at a time when the two countries are celebrating 30 years of diplomatic relations and are seeking to consolidate their strategic partnership in sectors considered crucial to their common advantages.
According to information from the White House and the Angolan presidency, the two statesmen will discuss the next steps to deepen bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, climate and energy, highlighting the implementation of the Partnership for Infrastructure and Global Investment (PGI) project in the Lobito Corridor, which aims to connect Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to global markets via the Port of Lobito.
The Lobito Corridor represents a strategic and privileged area for boosting the Angolan economy, since its geographical and strategic location opens up great opportunities for investors, particularly American ones.
The region has a set of strategic infrastructures linking Benguela to the DRC and Zambia, with rail, air, sea and land routes, making it a good option for the regional integration project, as well as creating the emergence of more sustainable economic and financial circulation for Angola and neighbouring countries.
This corridor greatly favours the business of large and small companies, which will be able to use the Port of Lobito as a first-line option, instead of the ports of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Beira, Mozambique or Durban, South Africa on the Indian Ocean.
The expansion and modernisation of the Port of Lobito will speed up the transport of goods, which can cross the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in just three weeks through the connection between the railway and the Port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
The Lobito Corridor has a railway line that runs from the Port of Lobito to the mineral-rich regions of the DRC and Zambia, where it is already beginning to have an impact on the lives of the communities living along the railway line.
Recently, President Joe Biden and the President of the European Union (EU) Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, announced a joint commitment to support Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia in speeding up the expansion of the Lobito Corridor.
The Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership essentially aims to enable the strengthening of the Lobito Corridor's interconnection with Angola's neighbouring countries to create new economic opportunities for the country and the region.
In partnership with the three countries, the European Union and the United States of America are committed to supporting the development of the Corridor by launching feasibility studies for a new expansion of the greenfield railway line between Zambia and Angola.
Investments in Africa
Meanwhile, in addition to the Lobito Corridor issue, the meeting between Joe Biden and João Lourenço may also focus on some of the topics discussed at the US-Africa summit in Washington in December 2022.
In this regard, President Joe Biden said in December 2022 at the US-AFRICA Summit that his government is fully engaged with Africa.
At the time, the statesman announced that his country's institutions would make around USD 15 billion available for new projects to improve the lives of people on the African continent in the long term.
In addition to these resources, Joe Biden announced an allocation of almost USD 350 million with the aim of investing in Africa's digital transformation, as well as the facilitation of a further USD 450 million in funding as a whole, including collaboration with institutions such as the American technology company Microsoft.
He informed that these investments were intended to ensure that 5 million Africans had access to the World Wide Web, as part of the multinational's commitment to reaching 100 million people by 2025.
ELJ/MRA/jmc
