Mario Cruz on development in Angola | Banco Atlantico

Transcript

Angola’s Economy Minister recently announced the country is on target to grow 7.1 percent this year, and maintain that strong rate through to 2017. Mario Cruz from Angolan bank Banco Atlantico is here to tell us more about the country’s prospects.

World Finance: First tell us about Angola‘s economy; what are the main drivers of growth?

Mario Cruz: Political and macroeconomic stability during the past ten years has been a main driver of growth. The economy has more than doubled during the period 2002 and 2012, all the big macroeconomic variables are under control like the inflation rate- we are actually below 10 percent for the first time in our history- the exchange rate is stable, international reserves are growing and the economy is growing around 7% per year last year. So the past growth history has actually been a very good driver of growth. We also have very good expectations for future growth, we expect the economy to double again during the period 2012 and 2025. There are a lot of international investors that are interested in Angola, sub-saharan Africa, so we are quite positive about the development of the economy.

“The oil and gas sector has been booming since 2002”

World Finance: You mention interest from international investors, tell us a bit more about that.

Mario Cruz: There’s interest from China and Chinese investors, there’s interest from European investors as well, South African, Latin America as well. Brazil has been a partner of the Angolan economy for quite some time and they’ve been investing a lot in projects like infrastructure, construction, retail, the oil and gas sector has been booming since 2002- especially since we have very high oil prices, we are producing around 1.8 million barrels of oil per day now. We expect this to grow to around 2.5 million barrels per day in 2017.

World Finance: So what kind of businesses does Banco Atlantico support, and what services do you offer?

Mario Cruz: Atlantico started in 2006 mainly as an investment bank and wealth manager. We specialised in these two businesses in the beginning. In 2011 the shareholders of the bank have adjusted the strategy, and we are now also providing commercial banking services. We have a client base which is growing, and we provide all the services like a universal bank, asset management, transactional banking, individual and corporate banking. We are also going into the insurance and risk-management areas, we provide all the banking services.

“Infrastructure development is still a problem and human capital is also a huge challenge”

World Finance:What are the challenges for business development in Angola at the moment?

Mario Cruz: I think I would say infrastructure development is still a problem and still something we have to move forward. Infrastructure like technology, roads, and all the infrastructure which is required for an economy to grow. We’ve gone a long way since 2012 but we still have a huge gap that we have to fulfil throughout the whole country. Human capital is also a huge challenge and the government and all the private sector has been working very hard, because in order to make the economy grow and develop you have to have good human resources. I believe those are the two main areas that we believe are the main challenges for investing in Angola.

World Finance: Last year we heard about your big plans for 2015, first tell us about you’re getting on with your domestic expansion

Mario Cruz: Actually 2012 has been a very good year. There was a big milestone in our project which is to cover the whole country, and we’ve done that. Banco is present in all 18 provinces, we have a 42 branch network at the moment, and we expect to grow it to 75 branches by 2015. That is growing very well and we’ve done a good job on that aspect.

“There was a big milestone in our project which is to cover the whole country, and we’ve done that”

World Finance: You also aim to operate across four continents by 2013, how are those plans going?

Mario Cruz: At the moment the bank is operating in Angola which is our operational base. We are also operating in Portugal, we are in the process of expanding in sub-saharan Africa in countries like Namibia and Mozambique as well, which is growing very well as well. We still have our plans in going to the far-east and Latin America. We are studying good opportunities and we hope that by the end of the year we will have a little bit more detail on that.

World Finance: Mario, thank you

Mario Cruz: Thank you very much.