Angola: Thirty Years of Dos Santos

José Eduardo dos Santos will mark his thirtieth year as President of Angola in September 2009. Since 2004 Angola has boomed, sustained by high government spending and a rapid increase in oil exports. At present Angola enjoys a healthy current account surplus and it posted the highest increase in its oil output between 2004 and 2007 (beating Russia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Libya and Kazakhstan among others). Angola is also a strategic oil supplier to the world's two largest oil consumers: in 2008, it was the sixth largest to the United States and the second largest to China. This is now changing and in 2009 Angola will fall probably behind Saudi Arabia and Iran as China's main source of imported oil. After an initial expected GDP growth of 8.2 per cent in January 2009, the government has adjusted the figure to above 3 per cent. The World Bank predicts negative growth in 2009 owing to lower international oil prices and slowdown in global demand. Diamond prices have also collapsed.