Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Plans to Finance Deep-Sea Port

LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Angola’s sovereign wealth fund committed $180 million to building a deep-sea port in a bid to boost trade as oil prices remain low.

The port will include a 630-meter (2,070-foot) terminal, ship-repair facilities and a free-trade zone, Fundo Soberano de Angola, known by its Portuguese acronym FSDEA, said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday, without saying where the port will be built. The commitment, which will lead to the creation of 20,000 jobs, is being made as part of its $1 billion infrastructure fund, FSDEA said.

The fund’s assets remained little changed at $4.8 billion in September, with $1.18 billion invested in fixed-income securities, the fund said.

Angola, which vies with Nigeria to be Africa’s biggest oil producers, has been struggling to cope with the impact of crude prices that have tumbled more than 50 percent since mid-2014. The fund, managed by Zug, Switzerland-based Quantum Global Investment Management Ltd., is designed to generate new sources of revenue as the country reduces its reliance on income from the commodity, which accounts for almost all of the country’s foreign-exchange earnings.