On November 8th, the Transformation and Reconstruction Project of the Old Urban Area, which will be constructed and operated by an enterprise from Nanchong, in Cazenga District of Luanda (capital of Angola) was officially started. Mr. Dos Santos, the Angolan President, attended the foundation laying ceremony and laid the first foundation brick for the construction.
Based on the official data from the Commercial & Food Bureau of Nanchong, more than 4,000 Nanchong citizens have participated in Angola’s post-war reconstruction as well as some domestic enterprises from Nanchong, including the Sichuan Hasan International Group, Nanchong Communication & Construction Co., Yingshan Construction Engineering Co. and Modern Transport .
Approximately 4,000 Nanchong citizens have started their business in Angola
Zhao Jiaqiang, a native citizen of Shunqing District in Nanchong, resigned from his previous stable job about 4 years ago and started his own business on fresh vegetable wholesale in the suburbs of Luanda. He rented a vegetable field from Hasan Group. In only 4 years, his daily income has reached more than USD 3,000.
Angola, located in the West Africa, has maintained the double-digit economic growth rate since the end of its civic war. It has been internationally recognized as one of the fastest growing countries in the world with the economic growth rate of over 25%.
According to the Nanchong’s Commercial & Food Bureau, most of the domestic enterprises from Nanchong started their business development activities in Angola in 2006. Since then, they already become the dynamic and vital forces in the post-war reconstruction process in Angola. More than 4,000 Nanchong citizens are participating actively in the local business development and the post-war reconstruction all over Angola. The Sichuan Hasan International Group and Nanchong Communication & Construction Co. have made tremendous achievement of business development in Angola. They contracted some of major infrastructure projects with the Angola government and the total contracted amount of the projects has reached nearly US$ 1.8 billion. Moreover, they have exported over 2,500 construction workers to Angola and their total annual labor income has been approximately 120 million RMB.
Presently, Hasan International’s CAMAMA Project has been officially approved by the Angolan Council of Ministers. Once the project is formally launched, the exporting income of the company will be expected to exceed US$ 20 million on its second half of the year.
Nanchong enterprises cooperate with Angola to face and overcome the financial crisis.
The economy of Angola has been impacted negatively since the international financial crisis started in 2009. It was hit so severely which led to the breaks in the funds strands in the reconstruction process. As a result, large amount of the infrastructure reconstruction projects, including the airport, highways, seaport, residential buildings and railways, have been suspended due to the lack of capital. According to the officials at Nanchong’s Commercial & Food Bureau, it’s one of the most difficult years for the post-war construction in Angola. Nevertheless, none of the Nanchong enterprises ever canceled or delayed their contracts with the Angola government. In 2009, Hasan International and EMPRUE Company, a state-owned company in Angola, jointly made a total investment of US$ 600 million to build a large local residential community for the civil servants in Luanda. In addition, they are planning to build a large (more than 3000 m²) building materials supermarket in the near future.
According to Hasan International, the Transformation and Reconstruction Project of the Old Urban Area in the Cazenga District of Luanda, which has been started on November 8th of this year, has been the third major construction project operated and constructed by Hasan International in Angola. Furthermore, the CAMAMA Central Axis infrastructure project, undertaken collaboratively by Hasan International and HuaXi Group, will be started at the beginning of this December with a total budget of nearly US$ 170 million.
For Nanchong, Angola has become the first destination for labor exporting.
With more reconstruction projects undertaken by the Nanchong enterprises in Angola, the demand of skilled workers is increasing constantly and more native construction workers in Nanchong will be going abroad next year. According to the Commercial & Food Bureau, the Nanchong municipal government maintains a close link with the State Military Reconstruction Office and the Ministry of Public Works in Angola, which contributes largely for the overseas project contracting and labor exporting. As a matter of fact, Angola has been the largest export market for the enterprises in Nanchong and the first destination for its labor exporting.