The Angolan Government has intensified efforts to strengthen national industry to reduce imports since the beginning of the New Year, a Senior Official said in Luanda on Saturday.
Higino Carneiro, Minister of Public Works, told reporters that the government now encouraged both foreign and Angolan businessmen to invest in creating more labour-intensified factories such as building materials factories aimed at reducing import quantities and creating more jobs.
He said the government would encourage business people financially in 2009 to set up more ceramics factories with a view to increasing the brick output to over six million pieces a month now from five million pieces before to meet the large scale of infrastructural construction.
Uniceramica, an Angolan ceramics firm, would participate aggressively in the manufacture and trading of building materials, he said.
The official added that the creation of the national industry would not only find a way out of the scarcity of building materials but also help cut down their high prices.
According to the official, Angola would also construct a clinker oven, a key product to produce cement, in central Benguela province aimed at reducing cement import.
The clinker oven is scheduled for completion and operation in 2012 with a production of one million tons of clinker annually, he said.