Angola - potential market for Vietnamese enterprises

The Angola 2050 strategy (replacing the Angola 2025 strategy) prioritises human resource development, economic diversification, and infrastructure modernisation, with the aim to turn Angola into a middle-income country while increasing its GDP to 290 billion USD and improving its human development indicators.

Viet Nam and Angola have a longstanding friendship relationship and traditional cooperation in various fields. The two countries have provided each other with valuable support both during their struggles for independence and national unification as well as in their causes of current national building and development.

With its policy focus on economic diversification and increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction, Angola wishes to strengthen its cooperation with Viet Nam to learn from its experience. The sectors Angola prioritises for FDI attraction include industry, tourism, mining, healthcare, education, agriculture, sports, and housing.

Angola is actively calling for foreign investment to develop the country and hopes Vietnamese investors will pay attention and increase their investment in Angola, thereby contributing to its economic growth. Viet Nam can share experience in fields of communications, agriculture, mining, and construction.

Cooperation between Viet Nam and Angola mainly focuses on healthcare and education. The government and people of Angola highly appreciate the valuable contributions made by Vietnamese medical and educational experts. Since the 1980s, Viet Nam has sent many healthcare and educational specialists to work in Angola. Currently, more than 100 Vietnamese experts are working there.

In addition, there are around 8,000 Vietnamese people living and working in Angola — which is the largest Vietnamese community in Africa. This is a favourable factor and a bridge to promote bilateral cooperation.

The Vietnamese Association in Angola was established and officially licensed by the Angolan government in April 2016. The Vietnamese Entrepreneurs Association in Angola was founded in June 2024.

However, cultural exchange remains limited, and people-to-people exchange is largely one-way, with few Angolans visiting Viet Nam. Vietnamese people’s trade activities in Angola mainly focus on retail, restaurants, construction, timber trade, and healthcare.

With its position as a gateway to the African market, Angola is a favourable investment destination for Vietnamese enterprises. Many Vietnamese businesses have shown interest in the Angolan market. However, geographic distance remains a significant barrier. Investment cooperation between the two countries is still modest, and trade is limited, mostly in the form of small-scale transactions.

Currently, both governments and peoples are making efforts to promote and elevate bilateral cooperation to a new level. In addition to traditional fields of politics, diplomacy, security, healthcare, education, and agriculture, both sides desire to expand into new areas, including defence, justice, telecommunications, broadcasting, and local-level cooperation.

With a young, abundant workforce with high consumption demand, Angola is actively working to improve its domestic production capacity, especially in agriculture and consumer goods, while focusing on investment to upgrade its transport and telecommunications system.

This is a highly promising market for businesses and export products of Viet Nam.