The deputy assistant secretary of the Office of African Affairs of the United States Department of State (USA), Joy Basu, will visit Angola next week with a view to strengthening the economic partnership with the Angolan government..

The US official, who has been attending the 20th edition of the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) trade forum in Johannesburg since yesterday, told Lusa that her three-day visit to the Angolan capital, Luanda, starting on Monday, November 6, was aimed at facilitating the diversification of "the entire Angolan economy".

"We have some major investments from US companies that are facilitated by the US government, both in the port of Lobito, but also in solar energy and telecommunications, these are US-based companies that are working with the US government to invest more in Angola, and the aim of my trip is to understand what more we can do to facilitate stronger bilateral trade between the US and Angola and further diversify economic growth," explained the deputy secretary, quoted by Lusa.

In the US official's view, President João Lourenço's administration "has taken a number of fiscal and economic measures, implementing many economic reforms," but the US wants to make sure that these reforms "are truly benefiting the people of Angola, and that American companies can come and establish partnerships to provide the goods and services that Angolans need not only to meet their daily needs, but also to become a more prosperous country with a sustainable, inclusive and growing economic experience".

According to Lusa, Joy Basu stressed that President Joe Biden's administration wants "ongoing US investment in Angola to continue, including the Lobito corridor, but also to find more diverse opportunities to invest in the whole Angolan economy".

In addition to Angola, the project to develop the maritime port of Lobito and the railway corridor of the same name aims to improve regional links with the neighboring countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) and Zambia.

"It includes the definition of hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, but it hopes to bring millions of dollars of trade to this region and really increase regional connectivity between these countries and through South Africa," he said in a statement to Lusa.

In the Angolan capital, the deputy assistant secretary of the US State Department's Bureau of African Affairs said she had meetings scheduled with the private sector and government officials, including the ministers of Trade and Transportation "to talk about what policies really create a business environment conducive to investment".

Last September in Johannesburg, the United States announced around one billion dollars for the multi-sectoral development of the Lobito logistics corridor to link Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia in southern Africa.

In the view of the US government, the new rail line linking Zambia to the port of Lobito will be "the largest single US and EU investment in the African continent in a generation", aimed at "unlocking the enormous potential" in the rail sector in sub-Saharan Africa.