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Angola Country Economic Memorandum, July 2025: Moving Beyond Oil - Laying the Foundations for Growth and Jobs

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2025-07-28
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2025-07-28
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This Angola Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) analyzes the country’s economic growth over the past two decades and offers insights into its long-term potential. The aim is to identify the main challenges, opportunities, and policy reforms necessary for fostering a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable growth path. Therefore, this CEM serves as a diagnostic tool to support Angola’s policymakers in advancing the economic diversification agenda outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP) 2023-2027 and the long-term vision. The Angolan economy is gradually transitioning from an oil-based growth model. Angola has implemented a series of reforms to restore macroeconomic stability and promote economic diversification. The extractive nature of Angola’s institutions has contributed to poor economic transformation and inclusion. In this context, transforming and diversifying the economy to create jobs is key to unleashing the country’s potential. This will also reduce poverty and greater resilience to a variety of shocks. In particular, the development of the Lobito Corridor has the potential to accelerate economic diversification in Angola and promote regional integration. Overall, Angola’s current growth model faces three interrelated challenges, each of which represents a loss in potential welfare and thereby an opportunity for reform. These challenges include: (i) recurrent macroeconomic instability; (ii) negative productivity growth; and (iii) low and underutilized physical and human capital. This CEM offers a roadmap to address these challenges and shift Angola toward a more sustainable and inclusive growth model. Such a model makes better use of the country’s existing resources while also laying the foundation for future prosperity.
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World Bank. 2025. Angola Country Economic Memorandum, July 2025: Moving Beyond Oil - Laying the Foundations for Growth and Jobs. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43509 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
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