Luanda, Aug. 18, 2025 (Lusa) - Japan has donated $6.5 million (€5.5 million) to improve infrastructure for small farmers along the Lobito Corridor, the railway linking Angola to neighbouring countries, as provided for in an agreement signed on Monday.
The agreement was signed in Luanda between Japan and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), which will be the executor of this project, starting in September. It will benefit 620 small farmers in the provinces of Benguela and Huambo.
This initiative, according to the Angolan news agency Angop, aims to develop irrigation and storage infrastructure.
The agreement was signed by the Japanese ambassador to Angola, Sano Hiroaki, and the head of the UNOPS Multi-Country Office Programme in Central Africa, Frederic Frippiat.
In his speech, the Japanese diplomat emphasised that the project would last two years and would also focus on training small producers in new production techniques, expressing Japan's continued support for the transfer of technology for the development of Angolan agriculture.
For his part, Frederic Frippiat emphasised that improving infrastructure is crucial to avoiding production losses and increasing the volume of the annual harvest.
The Lobito Corridor is a railway infrastructure that crosses Angola over 1,300 kilometres, linking the Port of Lobito (coast) to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo to transport the production of critical minerals from the Copperbelt (DRCongo) and Kolwezi (Zambia) regions.
The operation is being carried out by Lobito Atlantic Railway (a consortium comprising Portugal's Mota-Egil, Switzerland's Trafigura and Belgium's Vecturis). It is expected to involve an investment of almost a billion dollars, partly financed by the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
This development is also part of the European Global Gateway initiative, with the European bloc having announced a package of €600 million through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) developed within the framework of the G7.
NME/ADB // ADB.
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