Energy and transport were the beneficiaries of Chinese loans to Angola between 2000 and 2022, totalling $45 billion (€42 billion), a quarter of the amount China granted to Africa in this period.
Data from the Centre for Global Development Policy at Boston University, consulted by Lusa on Sunday, shows that the biggest loan in the last two decades went to Angolan oil company Sonangol.
Angola has contracted 258 loans, totalling $45 billion, which represents more than a quarter (26.5%) of the total China lent to Africa, with the most recent being granted last year by the state-owned defence company for air technology (CATIC).
Energy and transport were the sectors that consumed the most Chinese money – $25.9 and $6.2 billion respectively – absorbing more than half of the loans.
In more recent years, funds have been allocated mainly to the Defence and Communications Technology sectors.
In 2021, an agreement was signed with the Export-Import Bank of China (Chexim) for a public security and anti-crime surveillance project worth $79.7 million and an extension of the technical assistance contract for the Air Force with CATIC for $30.3 million.
Last year, CATIC granted a new loan to the Angolan government worth $18.6 million to buy military equipment, goods and services for the Air Force.
Since 2000, the Chinese state-owned bank CHEXIM has been one of the Angolan government’s main financiers through loans in a wide variety of areas, but it was also the state-owned China Development Bank (CDB) that granted the largest sum in this period in a single contract of $1 billion awarded in 2013 to Sonangol.
The database does not mention the purpose of the loan to the Angolan oil company, which is described only as “Sonangol Development”.
Other relevant loans in the energy sector include the 838 million dollars for the Soyo combined cycle power plant, granted in 2015 by ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) and the electrification projects in Luanda ($452 million granted by CDB) and Zaire ($405 million from ICBC and China Misheg), with contracts signed in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
In the transport sector, the most expensive loans were for the Caia port ($932 million in 2016), rehabilitation of the Caxito-Nzeto road ($619 million in 2007) and the Nzeto-Soyo road ($509 million in 2015) and the purchase of 5,500 buses, all via CHEXIM.
The CLA Database, launched in 2007, uses various sources to account for Chinese loans to Africa and estimates that between 2000 and 2022, a total of 39 Chinese lenders signed 1,243 loans totalling $170 billion (around €160 billion) with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions.
This database only shows the value of contracted loans, which are not equivalent to the total debt as they only include contracts and not disbursements, repayments or defaults.
Lusa
