Businessman calls for urgent creation of a Grain Exchange in Angola

Angolan businessman Isaac Cangundo has called for the urgent creation of a commodity exchange specialising in cereals, arguing that domestic production remains unable to keep pace with the rise in consumption of Angolan-made goods that the Government is seeking to enforce, particularly rice and maize.

The proposal appears in an opinion article published in Líder Magazine, in which the author argues that the Executive has sought, through administrative measures, to increase the share of domestic production in local consumption, but that domestic supply lacks the capacity to meet that demand. “Angola wants to consume more of its own production, but it still doesn’t produce enough,” Cangundo writes, pointing to shortages of rice and maize on the market as a sign of this insufficiency.

The article notes that the Government already requires licensed rice importers to ensure that at least 30% of the volumes they sell are of domestic origin, a rule recently extended to maize as well. For the businessman, however, this measure alone does not address the underlying problem of low production.

Cangundo identifies financing as the main obstacle to growing domestic production, noting that most producers cannot access bank credit because of collateral requirements, high interest costs, and a lack of financial instruments suited to agricultural realities.

It is to close this gap that the businessman proposes creating a grain exchange, a specialised market linking producers, buyers, processors, importers and financial institutions. According to the article, this mechanism would enable forward purchase contracts and direct barter arrangements, as well as increasing price and market transparency, facilitating production financing through the greater contractual certainty that forward contracts provide.

As benefits of creating this exchange, Cangundo cites job creation, an expansion of cultivated land, increased processing capacity for rice and maize, improved agricultural logistics, and reduced dependence on imports, arguing that the mechanism should become a priority of national economic policy.