Chinese Ambassador to Angola Gong Tao has said some Chinese companies are interested in buying assets the Angolan government is privatising, but that they are still thinking about it.
The Portuguese news agency quotes Mr Gong as saying on the sidelines of a seminar in Luanda: “It is necessary to study privatisation projects, analyse them and then make decisions.”
Speaking more generally, Mr Gong said Chinese companies had built 2,800 km of railways in Angola, 20,000 km of roads, public housing containing 100,000 homes, over 100 schools and 50 hospitals.
This week the China Daily reported that the Angolan government intended to privatise 195 companies in the public sector, 32 of them big ones, by auctioning them whole or floating shares in them.
The Chinese state-run newspaper quoted the Angolan Embassy in Beijing as saying that by investing in Angolan businesses due to be privatised, Chinese private companies could play a crucial role in making the Angolan economy less dependent on the oil industry.