- List state companies on bourse
CEM REPORT, ENERGY | Angola has revealed plans to remove all fuel subsidies by the end of 2025 as a means to strengthen its currency and attract private investment.
According to the country’s Finance Minister, Vera Daves de Sousa, Angola is also considering a dual listing of state-owned companies in 2025/2026, locally and on an international bourse for the long-delayed partial privatisation of the state oil company Sonangol.
“We are taking out the fuel subsidies… End of 2025, we expect to see this process stabilise and close as much as possible.”
“We will be able to see Sonangol normally paying taxes, (improving) profits and paying dividends to the state,” Reuters reports.
Daves de Sousa said that as part of President Joao Lourenco’s reform efforts to modernise the economy and attract private investment, the government was considering a dual listing in 2025 or 2026 in Angola and on a yet-to-be-decided international bourse for the long-delayed partial privatisation of Sonangol.
The company needs to continue cutting costs as well, so that “starting in 2026 (we are) seeing a different Sonangol”, Daves de Sousa added.
She said 23 state-owned companies were undergoing privatisation while 43 more, including lender Banco de Fomento Angola and mobile network Unitel, were waiting to start the process.
Insurer ENSA will be listed locally in 2024, Daves de Sousa said, without elaborating. Its chairman said in 2021 a majority stake would be sold that year.
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The subsidy removal will enable Sonangol to pay taxes and dividends. It last paid a dividend in 2019, the same year the government launched an ambitious privatisation programme.
African nations are beginning to embrace subsidy removal as a means to strengthen their economy and earn adequate foreign exchange to strengthen currencies. This action has led to protests and uproar by citizens.
To guide against a breach of national security, some governments have switched to partial removal of subsidy and created palliatives to ease the transition.
