Geneva, Switzerland, Oct. 22, 2025 (Lusa) - Angola wants to connect its main infrastructure with railways to facilitate trade within the country and with its neighbours in the region, Angolan Transport Minister Ricardo Viegas d'Abreu said on Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland.
"With regard to trade in particular, in the master plan we have defined how to integrate these major infrastructure facilities [ports, railways, airports and roads] and enable their expansion, not only within the country, but also by connecting them to neighbouring countries," said the Angolan minister at a round table at the 16th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD16).
Angola has a coastline of 1,600 kilometres and its three main ports - Luanda, Lobito and Namibe - are connected by railways.
According to the minister, the Angolan government's plan is to extend the rail link to neighbouring countries, as is the case with the Lobito Corridor, in the centre of the country, which is already in operation and connects to the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo and to north-western Zambia.
To implement these plans, he added, Angola wants private sector investment to expand the Lobito Corridor - which may in the future connect the Atlantic coast to the Indian Ocean - and where an agency has already been set up by the three countries involved to facilitate transport, the movement of goods and logistics.
Angolan President João Lourenço has already inaugurated new port infrastructure in Namibe, in the south of the country.
According to Ricardo Viegas d'Abreu, the government "will launch an international tender in the coming weeks for the concession of the infrastructure, which is linked to the railway" and where they want to promote the idea of extending the corridor to neighbouring countries, such as Namibia and Zambia.
The challenge for Angola, according to the Minister of Transport, is how the country will manage to "promote the integration of the corridors" and "secure the necessary investment to do so".
Next week, Angola will participate in a forum in Rwanda to discuss how African countries "can reduce their infrastructure deficit, which currently limits the capacity for intra-African trade and entails very high logistical costs across the continent,"said Ricardo Viegas d'Abreu, adding that intra-African trade represents only 3% of total trade on the continent.
The Angolan minister also mentioned that in addition to connecting the main railway lines, the plan is "digitisation, which is essential to speed up processes and facilitate trade, and (...) the sustainability associated [with the construction and maintenance of railways]".
The 16th session of UNCTAD runs until Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland, with the theme "Shaping the future: driving economic transformation for equitable, inclusive and sustainable development".
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