[Kapanda]

Hey all.

I have a website dedicated to Angolan market intelligence.

I published today a 4-month old article I wrote on Angola's infrastructure. It looks at the government's expenditure and development in the sector.

http://mbuanza.com/angolan-infrastructure/

Comment and criticise please. What should be considered when looking at a country's infrastructure and development? From a biz standpoint, what do you think is important to know?

[ronimacarroni]

Well I suppose the most important thing would be stability.
Like take pictures of you with local police men, kids going to schools, politicians...
You know try to show that Angola is a country on the right path rather than just crazy people with machetes.

[Kapanda]

LMFAO!

I can't tell if you're joking...

I'm a really gullible guy.

But did you read the content?

[Rei Murasame]

I think more needs to be said.

Like this:

• You gave lots of spending figures for trains and roads, but you haven't actually said how much load can be potentially moved on a monthly basis along the results of these projects.
  
  
• You haven't given percentages for what kind of things are being transported. Coltran? Tin? Pink flamingo feathers?
  
  
• What is the Trans-Cunene corridor? The article assumes that the reader knows what that is, but it shouldn't assume this.
  
  
• What motivated the Chinese to supply funding? Talking a bit about what the Chinese are hoping to achieve, can encourage other investors to think about Angola in the same way as China is thinking about it, so you should also talk about that.
  
  
• Why did you place Angola's comparative lack of regional integration under 'bad news'? You should instead put that as 'good news', because taking a path of domestic infrastructure development before integration, is actually a good thing.
  
  
• You need to say something about the quality of the labour force, their educational attainment, and their reliability. And by reliability, I mean that it is useful to know if workers are able to get the job done without running up costs in labour strikes.
  
  
• You say that there is not enough being spent on power infrastructure and water infrastructure. Compared to what projected figures? Also, you need to show whether the lower than expected spending in those areas is actually a problem for grid capacity, as opposed to say, costs savings across the board resulting in lower spending levels.

Those are basically the questions that popped into my mind as I read your article. Also, clearly the information that you did give is cited from somewhere, so you should probably put the citations for it at the bottom of the article.

[Kapanda]

Rei, thanks a bunch for that.

And feel free to comment under my article.

This article is not meant to be a complete thesis on Angola infrastructure. But your points provide research points for the next article. The Chinese point you made would never have come to mind.

The same on the kind of things being transported. That's beyond the scope of the article, as that speaks about the commercial activity in Luanda. Similarly, the labour force quality. Though that will likely be covered in a future article covering aspects of the country's macroeconomy.

There will be a series of articles - short-ish- to be published. You should note a cohesion among them. But it's impossible to show that with only about two articles, spaced months apart.

I updated the article with a brief explanation of the Trans-Cunene corridor.

[ronimacarroni]

LMFAO!

I can't tell if you're joking...

I'm a really gullible guy.

But did you read the content?

I guess what I was trying to say is that you should take pictures of yourself with the things I've mentioned.
You know show that Angola is a place peaceful enough for a tourist or investor to visit like Kenya.
Pictures>numbers
On this case atleast I think.

[Kapanda]

Noted.

I don't know about showing my face, but taking pics shouldn't be a problem

[Rei Murasame]

Rei, thanks a bunch for that.

And feel free to comment under my article.

This article is not meant to be a complete thesis on Angola infrastructure. But your points provide research points for the next article. The Chinese point you made would never have come to mind.

The same on the kind of things being transported. That's beyond the scope of the article, as that speaks about the commercial activity in Luanda. Similarly, the labour force quality. Though that will likely be covered in a future article covering aspects of the country's macroeconomy.

There will be a series of articles - short-ish- to be published. You should note a cohesion among them. But it's impossible to show that with only about two articles, spaced months apart.

I updated the article with a brief explanation of the Trans-Cunene corridor.

Sounds good to me, then. Also, note that since 2011, Japan is also involved with Angola as well. So in a sense, China and Japan have already done lots of your research for you, you'd just have to get the rationale of those two countries and see what they've said.

For example, quoting METI:

The governments of Japan and Angola confirmed today that they had reached agreement framework on a Japan-Angola investment treaty. The two countries also agreed to cooperate to reach accord on remaining issues in order to conclude the treaty at an early date.

• 1. The Japan-Angola investment treaty will be Japan’s first investment treaty with a sub-Sahara African country. Two rounds of negotiations since their start in April last year resulted in agreement in principle on the majority of the investment treaty. Both parties will cooperate to reach accord on the remaining issues in order to conclude the treaty at an early date.
• 2. The investment treaty is an international covenant that will protect Japanese enterprises investing overseas, as well as the properties in which they invest and thereby improve the investment environment. The Japanese government promotes the conclusion of investment treaties with other countries so that Japanese enterprises can feel more secure in making investments overseas. An investment treaty usually includes provisions concerning national treatment (a principle that requires the recipient country to give others the same treatment as its own nationals), freedom of remittance, procedures to settle potential disputes and so forth.
• 3. Besides being one of the biggest crude oil producers in Sub-Sahara Africa, Angola is blessed with a wealth of natural resource. The country has received increasing amounts of foreign direct investment since the civil war ended in 2002.
• 4. Once concluded, the treaty is expected to result in more investment by Japanese enterprises, strengthened economic relations between Japan and Angola, closer economic relations between Japan and sub-Sahara African countries and increased development of Angola’s economy.

(Reference 1) Investment treaty context

To date, Japan has signed (implemented) 15 investment treaties (or 25 treaties, including the investment chapters in bilateral EPAs).

(Reference 2) Course of negotiations

November 2009: A mission dispatched to give an explanation of the investment treaty
April 2010: First round of negotiations (in Angola)
February 2011: Second round of negotiations (in Angola)

(Reference 3) Importance of Angola

- Besides being the largest oil-producing country in the sub-Sahara African region, Angola is abundant in natural resources, including minerals (e.g., diamonds, iron ore). Given its remarkable economic growth in recent years and large need for infrastructure development, Angola has the potential to become Japan’s major supplier of resources and an export destination of Japanese infrastructure systems and plants.

Also, MOFA says this:

In 2007, Nippon Keidanren dispatched a study mission which is composed by 50 members from trading company, manufacturer, financial institution and ministries in order to examine situation of Angolan economy and resources, to exchange views with Angolan government and to study demining activities.

It's probably possible to find the detailed results of that study.

And Kyodo News said this:

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan and Angola struck a basic agreement Monday on a bilateral investment treaty, which is designed to facilitate Japanese firms’ foray into the resource-rich African country that is seeing rapid economic growth following the end of a civil war in 2002.

Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and his Angolan counterpart Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti endorsed the broad accord and agreed to work toward an early conclusion of bilateral negotiations. Angola will be the first sub-Saharan African country to seal an investment pact with Japan, Japanese officials said.

Japanese companies such as Toyota Motor Corp., construction machinery maker Komatsu Ltd., trading house Sojitz Corp. and Sumitomo Corp. have dispatched employees to Angola, which is rich in resources including oil, diamonds and rare earth minerals.

The officials said Japan is eager to strengthen its economic ties with Angola, which now serves as a major oil provider to China.

Following a meeting with the Angolan foreign minister, Maehara also signed documents on Japanese grant aid worth 383 million yen for vaccination against polio through the U.N. Children’s Fund.

The aid will be used to immunize some 5.76 million children under 5 years old in 2011 in Angola, where an epidemic has continued since 2005, the officials said.

So that gives an idea of what they are looking for, just it needs to have some numbers put next to it.

You know show that Angola is a place peaceful enough for a tourist or investor to visit like Kenya.

Noted.

If you do any pictures, just try to show the symptoms of good governance, don't go photographing right up in a police officer's face just to prove that police exist, otherwise that looks suspicious to an investor in and of itself.

Take photographs of people driving to work early in the morning on an overcast day in a city. And photos late in the evening of construction workers clocking out or something. And traffic wardens looking at parked cars, maybe.

But don't make it look like you have to directly prove that social order exists. Being too obvious about it would have the opposite effect than what you want. For example, the worst possible picture to take would be a picture of police standing and grinning at your camera in the open sun, sweating at midday, with the light of the sun reflecting off their foreheads.