The European Union says it will invest an additional 76.5 million euros (US$79.68 million) in the Lobito Corridor, a major transcontinental railroad and economic corridor project led by the EU and US, the Portuguese new agency Lusa reports.
The new package aims to “provide tangible benefits for the Angolan people through better jobs, better education and sustainable economic growth”, according to a statement from Jozef Síkela, the European commissioner for international partnerships, “as well as continuing to develop the Lobito Corridor.”
A joint venture of three European companies won the 30-year concession for the Lobito railway – connecting the landlocked Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to Atlantic ports in Angola – in July 2023, conditional on investments of US$455 million in Angola and US$100 million in the DRC. These initial investments were further bolstered in May 2024 when the US signed a US$1.3 billion infrastructure investment deal to finance three other major infrastructure projects along the corridor.
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The Lobito Corridor marks the first major attempt by Western powers to compete with the Belt and Road Initiative, a Chinese global infrastructure development strategy credited with investments in more than 150 countries since 2013.
The new assistance package, according to the release, covers three areas: promotion of trade and investment in Angola, support for technical education and vocational training, and the improvement of Angola’s natural heritage. More than half of the package, 43 million euros, will go to a technical and vocational training programme to “minimise the gap” between demand for qualified workers and the supply available in the agriculture, renewable energy and transport sectors.
Another 25 million euros will go to governance, conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and the development of ecotourism. Some 8.5 million euros will be devoted to the promotion of trade, targeted toward improving the business environment and strengthening Angola’s commercial frameworks.
