Angola is pushing Beijing to increase its financing for the country to import more Chinese-made green technologies, including solar panels and electric cars.
In the run up to FOCAC, Angola’s Finance Minister Vera Daves De Sousa told Reuters that it was considering competing bids from Europe and China to develop and diversify its economy in exchange for access to its market.
“We will buy more solar panels from Europe because the financing is coming from there,” Daves de Sousa explained on Tuesday.
While the oil and mineral rich nation has been the continent’s largest beneficiary of Chinese loans over the past decade, it is also looking to replace the debts with more “private-sector engagement and through public-private partnerships”.
“We need to think outside the box, because the plain vanilla solution of ‘you give me money, I’ll give you collateral’ is done,” she said.