At the 13th edition of the Africa CEO Forum, held on 14-15 May 2026 in Kigali, Angola sent a clear signal to international investors. According to a statement from ANGOP, the country’s participation comes in a context where agriculture now occupies a central place in the national productive structure, asserting itself as the main contributor to the Angolan economy, ahead of the traditional oil sector in terms of weight in domestic economic activity, reflecting the diversification process under way. The country was represented by José de Lima Massano, Minister of State for Economic Coordination, who spoke on the “Invest in Angola” panel.
The framing is not anecdotal. It marks a deliberate shift in the way Luanda presents its economic profile to an audience of around 2,500 participants and investors at one of the African private sector’s main annual events. The minister also presented the reforms implemented by the government, in particular the improvement of the business climate, the expansion of logistics and productive infrastructure, incentive measures for private investment, and the growth of non-oil sectors, especially agriculture, manufacturing, energy, logistics and mining.
Reading: a real shift, but not the one the pitch describes
The narrative of agriculture overtaking oil deserves to be qualified. Several official sources confirm that the weight of the non-oil sector has grown significantly in recent years. According to the African Development Bank, agriculture and fisheries’ share of GDP rose from 6.2% in 2010 to 14.9% in 2023, while in 2024 real GDP grew by 4.4%, up from 1.1% in 2023, driven by robust non-oil sector growth of 5.3%, particularly in agriculture, fisheries, diamond extraction, and energy, while the oil sector grew by 1.2%.
According to the Angolan Minister of Economic Coordination himself, in July 2025, agriculture now accounts for around 19% of GDP, compared with just 13% in 2017, and has been growing at an average annual rate of 6%. The shift is therefore real in terms of domestic activity weight.
But the picture changes when one looks at exports and public revenue. The AfDB indicates that oil still accounts for 28.9% of GDP and 95% of exports. Other analyses go further: when measured by export composition, the picture is starker: crude oil and refined products still constitute over 90% of merchandise exports, indicating that Angola remains a functionally mono-commodity exporter.
The structural reality of agriculture is also more nuanced than the pitch suggests. According to the World Bank, agriculture contributes 14.9% of GDP but employs 56.2% of the population. Only about a third of Angola’s arable land is used for harvests, and only 100,000 out of 5 million arable hectares benefit from machinery and/or animal traction for sowing and harvesting. Angolan agriculture mainly consists of subsistence farming, with the main industrial crops being coffee and cotton. Another analysis adds that Angola imports approximately 80% of its food, and the agricultural sector’s productivity remains constrained by poor rural infrastructure, limited mechanization, and unresolved land tenure issues.
In other words, agriculture has gained weight in domestic activity, but the country remains a net food importer with a productivity per worker that lags. The “agriculture ahead of oil” narrative captures a real direction, but flattens a still asymmetric reality.
Implications: what the pitch tries to do, and what it cannot do
For Angola, the agricultural framing serves a specific function in the Kigali context. It signals to private investors that the country is opening up beyond hydrocarbons, in a year when the IMF projects Angolan growth to slow sharply to 1.9% in 2025 and stagnate in 2026, largely due to lower oil production and moderate expansion in the non-oil sector. The diversification narrative is therefore not purely communicative: it accompanies a real macroeconomic constraint linked to declining oil revenues.
For investors, the question is what this signal makes more probable. Several elements give the pitch a partial materiality: an IMF analysis indicates that growth in the agricultural sector does not move in tandem with oil prices, underscoring its potential to support economic diversification; the AfDB stresses that economic diversification remains essential to mitigate downside risks linked to unstable oil production and prices; and the National Development Plan 2023-2027 explicitly identifies agriculture, livestock and industry as priority sectors.
But several constraints temper investor appetite. Inflation remains elevated at 23.4% in 2025 and is expected to decline to 17.7% in 2026. The fiscal deficit will rise from 1.7% of GDP in 2025 to 2.1% in 2026, reflecting increased spending to revitalize the economy ahead of the 2027 elections. Access to private credit remains structurally limited, the kwanza has experienced significant depreciation in recent years, and natural capital has deteriorated, with agricultural land down 49%. These elements form the operational reality faced by any investor responding to the Luanda pitch.
For Angola’s regional positioning, the Kigali sequence sits within a broader effort to reposition the country in African capital flow conversations. The minister was to hold meetings with African investors, representatives of international financial institutions and business leaders, aimed at strengthening economic partnerships and mobilizing new investment for Angola.
Outlook: what to watch
Three indicators will measure the real effectiveness of the Kigali pitch. The first is the trajectory of agricultural sector financing, in particular the extent to which the diversification narrative translates into concrete partnerships with regional and international investors, beyond the announcement effect of the forum. The capital increase of the Development Bank of Angola (BDA) and the Credit Guarantee Fund, mentioned by the Angolan authorities, will be a tangible signal in this regard.
The second is the evolution of the share of food imports. Angola’s ability to substitute its food imports through domestic production will be the operational test of the diversification narrative. As long as the country imports roughly 80% of its food, the assertion that agriculture has overtaken oil in the productive structure remains an indicator of relative weight, not of functional autonomy.
The third is the consistency of the official discourse with the country’s actual fiscal trajectory. The 2026 budget bill announced a 4.7% spending cut in a context of weaker oil revenues. The question is whether public agricultural investments will be preserved in this consolidation framework, or whether they will be among the adjustment variables. The answer to this question, more than the rhetoric of the Kigali forum, will determine whether agriculture has actually moved ahead of oil in Angolan economic priorities, or whether the announcement remains primarily a strategic positioning exercise.