Angola, one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, has adopted laws to govern future financial markets that it plans to launch in the beginning of next year. Plans to make Luanda a financial trading hub have been on the books for a long time, but have been delayed by technical problems as well as the lack of legal footing to guarantee transparency. Vera Daves, director of Angola’s Capital Market Commission told AFP that four pieces of legislation adopted through presidential decrees now provide the legal framework necessary. With the laws on the books, the plan now is to launch a bond market next year, ahead of the opening of the stock market in 2016. The move is part of the government’s strategy to bolster the importance of the national currency, the kwanza, away from the US dollar and diversify its economy from oil production.
The resource-rich state is the second-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. But despite its wealth, two-thirds of the population live on under US$ 2 a day, following a 27-year civil war which ended in 2002. Oil revenues have helped the country average ten percent growth a year over the past decade.