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The US-Angola
Chamber of Commerce has had an active and productive year. The
very successful working groups format in Washington continued.
Six meetings were held with the USAID Mission Director, World
Bank/IMF, Vice Minister of Health, American Ambassador to
Angola, Minister of Finance, and the Angolan Ambassador to the
United States. Notes of the meeting with Ambassador Diakite
are included elsewhere in this report. The Chamber would like
to thank BP and Chevron for holding these events in their
Washington offices.
In
Luanda, the Chamber hosted a business symposium in early May,
which was considered very successful despite the outbreak of
Marburg in Uige province. A complete report on the symposium
is posted under “Resources” on the main page of our website.
The Chamber organized a well-attended lunch in honor of
Ambassador Cynthia Efird at the Hotel Presidente in September
sponsored by Esso Angola, Lazare Kaplan, and ValleySoft. On
December 2, the 2nd Gala Dinner was held at Casa
70. The latter event received excellent support from members
and sponsors. The Gold Sponsors included Esso Angola, MITC,
Halliburton, Chevron, Barloworld, Tecnocarro and BP. Silver
sponsors were Pegasus Angola, BAI, ValleySoft, Tecnoserve,
Lazare Kaplan, BESA, S&N Pump, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. We
would like to thank all of the sponsors for making this event
happen.
The two
Gala dinners enabled the Chamber to establish a representative
office in Luanda in March, headed by Liliana de Sousa and
assisted by Paula Morais. This marks an important milestone
for the Chamber and will enable the Chamber to carry out more
activities in Angola and be more relevant to the needs of our
members. Already, the Luanda office was instrumental in
organizing the Business Symposium, the lunch in honor of
Ambassador Efird, and the Gala dinner mentioned above. We are
particularly fortunate to have Liliana de Sousa because of her
past involvement with the Chamber when she worked at HSBC
Equator. She brings enormous energy and experience to the
position.
The
Chamber’s membership also continued to grow during the year
and has now nearly reached 100
members. Of
particular note is the number of Angolan companies that are
joining the Chamber. A complete list of the new members is
given elsewhere in this report.
Looking
ahead to 2006, the Chamber intends to continue doing what it
does best, --providing information to members and prospective
members, facilitating visas and authentication of documents,
updating the website, issuing periodic reports, and holding
working group meetings. We also intend to conduct another
mission to Angola in the first half of the year and are
examining the possibility of co-hosting a major conference on
Angola in Washington. The feasibility of replicating the
working group format in Luanda, which has proved so successful
in Washington, is being explored. And finally, we shall
organize another Gala dinner or variation thereof during the
year.
On behalf
of Maria da Cruz, Liliana de Sousa, Paula Morais, and myself,
we would like to thank all of our members for their support
and commitment in 2005. We look forward to working with you in
2006.
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