Angola’s President João Lourenço has put reinvigorating the agriculture sector at the heart of his economic strategy. Greater production of a wider range of crops would both reduce the US$3 billion a year that the country spends on food imports and also improve living standards in the rural areas that have missed out on more rapid economic development at the coast.

Japan and China are the countries that Angola is contacting to finance the re-launch of the cotton crops in the Cassange region.

Angola has discussed reinvigorating its agriculture sector ever since 2002. Yet the reliance on oil income meant that far too little progress was actually made.