The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is due to travel to Angola to take part in a mini-summit, an initiative promoted by João Lourenço as part of US President Joe Biden’s visit to the country, which will take place between 13 and 15 October.
The development of the Lobito Corridor is one of the issues taking Joe Biden to Angola and, to this end, the Angolan head of state intends to organise a meeting with the countries and institutions involved in financing this infrastructure.
João Lourenço has also invited the presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, Félix Tshisekedi and Hakainde Hichilema, to this initiative. The Angolan head of state also extended an invitation to Georgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, to visit Luanda on this date.
The invitation to Ursula von der Leyen is justified by the fact that the European Union has put forward an investment of 45 million dollars in projects along the corridor, focussed on areas such as the blue economy and biodiversity protection. Italy, for its part, announced its intention to mobilise up to 320 million dollars as part of a G7 effort to modernise the railway infrastructure.
The US involvement in this corridor was definitively sealed in June of this year, when the board of the US agency International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved a 350 million dollar loan, which also involves the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), to realise it.
‘This unprecedented project is the United States‘ largest ever railway investment in Africa and will create jobs and connect markets for generations to come,’ said Biden in November last year, stressing that it was an investment of more than one billion dollars (more than 918 million euros), during a visit by João Lourenço to the US.
This will be the first time that a US head of state has travelled to Angola. Biden’s trip is therefore a historic milestone and a diplomatic victory for Angolan President João Lourenço, who has been on a path of rapprochement with the United States.
Source: Jornal de Negócios
