ANGOLA BETS ON A HIGH VALUE DIAMOND BUSINESS FACILITY

With this diamond hub, a transformative space is set in the Lundas region, where the fourth largest Kimberlite in the world is exploited.

The New Jeweler Bureau

Primary producers of rough diamonds, as is the case of Angola, are increasingly innovating their solutions for attracting foreign investment, but few do so by applying their investment to create an integrated business and service ecosystem for industry, as occurs in this African country. The new ecosystem is being created with the construction of the Saurimo Diamond Development Hub, with an initial investment of US $ 77 million fully applied by the National Diamond Trading Company of Angola E.P (SODIAM E.P), a local State Owned company.

The Diamond Hub is being developed in the east of the country, in one of the eighteen provinces that comprises Angola's administrative division, Lunda Sul, which is about 1,000 km from Luanda, the country's capital. Lunda Sul has as its capital, the city of Saurimo, from which the Hub is named, a small town with a population of 501,904 inhabitants and a territorial area of 24,900 km². Founded in 1923, the city was called, until 1975, the year in which Angola celebrated its independence, “Vila Henrique de Carvalho", in honor of Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, who was a Portuguese explorer who reached the region of the former africa’s Lunda Empire .

A multipurpose space, with areas of manufacturing, cutting, polishing, training, and leisure

The Saurimo Diamond Development Hub is currently consolidating itself as a space whose main objective is to bring together companies linked to the diamond polishing sector, focusing on the diamond value chain, offering an adequate and necessary infrastructure both for the promotion and development of its activity.

This Hub with a total area of 305.185,74m² combines, to the referred infrastructure, a strategic location in the city of Saurimo, located to the north of the urban core of the city, approximately 2.5 km from the Muangueji River and about 25 km south of the mining facilities, mainly CATOCA.

The Hub is divided into three main areas, namely:

• Commercial Area - which constitutes a nucleus of public access with stores, restaurants, banks, tax offices, offices, a convention center and two education and training centers

• Industrial Area - with restricted access, reinforced security and composed of 26 lots of different dimensions for the implementation of diamond polishing factories and some industries, will provide a range of services to the mining industry

• Reserved Area for Hybrid Power Plant - (solar + thermal) to make the project autonomous in terms of energy supply. In the industrial area, four diamond cutting and polishing factory will be integrated. One with about 3.000m² and three with 750m². A training center for cutting and polishing is also being considered. In the remaining batches of the industrial area, numbering 12, other polishing factories and, eventually, other industrial projects inherent to the diamond industry may be integrated.

Creating jobs by betting on local communities

Job creation is one of the greatest expectations for both local authorities and young people. In this regard, with the division of the Hub into commercial and industrial zones, it gains the capacity to generate about 5,000 direct and indirect jobs. The commercial area - a total space of 48,306.58m² (4.83ha) - comprises facilities and services such as public utility offices, banks, insurance companies, stores, offices, food court and medical post; while the industrial area - with an extension of 256,781.82m² (25.67ha) - will have polishing factories, a diamond evaluation and polishing training center, a gemology training center from mining operator ENDIAMA EP, logistics centers support to the mining industry, industrial projects linked to the mining and residential industry.

Providing good investment conditions

Supported by SODIAM E.P, investors are expected to see in this new integrated business ecosystem an opportunity for the implementation of new and promising projects across the entire value chain of the diamond subsector. In fact, Angolan and foreign investors, public and private companies, companies that operate in the sector of services for the mining industry can apply for a space at the Hub, just by submitting a letter of intent to SODIAM EP, expressing interest in renting or acquiring a space in the Hub, with the following additional information: activity to be developed, area to establish the activity (commercial or industrial), size / characteristics of the space needed, jobs to be created and investment value.

Potential investors must, however, have legal and updated company documents (commercial certificate, tax identification number, business license and others) and a business plan. The Angolan authorities have also created an incentive system, which includes, among others, the reduction / exemption from import fees for raw materials, equipment and other inputs; reduction / exemption of export taxes for the products produced there, incentives aligned with the Free Zones regime for the Diamond Hub; ease working visas grant and supply ofraw material (rough diamond), in the case of building factories, is guaranteed.

Consequently, if in other geographies the primary producers of rough diamonds are today committed to creating solutions capable of attracting recognized foreign investors, Angola already has something concrete to offer to these investors - the Saurimo Diamond Development Hub, which will start operating if estimates for the end of the first half of 2021, near the regional city.

Saurimo, a region where diamonds speak for themselves

The city of Saurimo, which has an average altitude of 1081 meters at sea level and a humid subtropical climate, is limited to the north by the municipalities of Lucapa and Cambulo, to the east by the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the south by the municipality of Dala and to the west by the municipality of Cacolo and Lubalo. The population of the city is made up of many ethnolinguistic groups, mainly the Lunda- Tchókwes and Luvales, as well as small Ovimbundi, ambiguous minorities, as well as foreign citizens, including Chinese, Portuguese, Congolese, Zimbabweans and Senegalese. The municipality of Saurimo, which is essentially a mining site, has a remarkable diamond exploration region, Catoca, where the fourth largest kimberlite in the world is located, and a new mine is also being established, the Luaxe kimberlite.

The city also serves as a commercial center on the east side of Angola, with the “Portão do Leste” (east gate) market just outside the city, making connections between Luanda over 1000 km, Dundo 250 km, Luena 260 km, and Malange 600 km. The population lives essentially from agriculture, production of artisanal charcoal, artisanal fishing, working in the mining sector. The new business ecosystem is expected to transform the region, creating jobs and economic and social development.