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Angola FOREIGN TRADE AND ASSISTANCE
Because of the overall decline in productivity after
independence, Angola has become increasingly dependent on
foreign
trade and assistance to meet its domestic needs. It has
also become
dependent on oil export earnings to fund imports.
Traditionally,
the most important imports have been machinery items,
especially
equipment for the oil industry. By the mid-1980s, however,
military
equipment and food were becoming Angola's most important
imports.
The country continued to export most of its oil to the
West, in
particular the United States. The Soviet Union, as the
country's
arms supplier, and France and the United States, as
suppliers of
oil equipment, were the country's major import partners.
Assistance
from individual foreign countries and international
organizations
was also becoming increasingly important to Angola because
of its
mounting food crisis.
Only by severely limiting imports has the government
been able
to prevent a serious crisis in the balance of payments
account. In
the 1980s, the Ministry of Planning, in consultation with
the
National Bank of Angola (Banco Nacional de Angola--BNA),
the
Ministry of Domestic and Foreign Trade, and other
ministries drew
up an annual foreign trade budget as part of the annual
national
plan. This plan set ceilings for categories of imports in
each
sector of the economy, and import quotas were then
allocated to
individual companies. For each foreign order, the
importing company
was required to submit invoices and apply to the Ministry
of
Domestic and Foreign Trade for an import license. Most
imports were
brought in by state foreign trade companies and new
regional
import-export companies. However, the oil companies
enjoyed foreign
exchange autonomy and imported their equipment directly.
Data as of February 1989
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