The proposal for a Private Investment Law was approved yesterday.

The new Law will apply to internal and foreign investments, regardless of the value of the investment and will not apply to investments to be made by commercial companies in the public domain in which the State holds the majority or the totality of the share capital.

With this new Private Investment Law, there will no longer be an obligation for a foreign investor, in certain sectors of activity, to have an Angolan partner holding 35% of the share capital.

The future Law will establish that there will be own diplomas that will define the private investment regimes in the petroleum exploration, mining sector, financial institutions sector, subsector of higher education and sector of the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation.

This draft law also aims to accelerate the process of approving investment making Angola more attractive to foreign investment.

Under the new Law, there will be two private investment regimes: the prior declaration regime and the contracting regime.

The prior declaration regime will exempt any negotiation, and the benefits will be assigned automatically, since the deadline for decision will be very short (48 hours processing time). Under this regime, commercial companies must be set up before the request for registration of the investment. In turn, the contractual regime will only apply to investments that fall within the priority sectors and will involve negotiation between the investor and the public entities competent for this purpose. The procedure for the contractual regime will be regulated by a new regulation, however, according to the ordinary procedure, the conclusion of the process will occur within a period of 7 days and according to the extraordinary procedure, the conclusion of the process will occur in a maximum period of 30 days.

The proposal now approved also aims to promote the development of the most disadvantaged regions through increased investment in these regions.

The proposal will shortly be voted on in the specialty.