Angola plans to start partial disposal of national oil company (NOC) Sonangol by the end of 2021 or early 2022, finance minister, Vera Daves de Sousa, has announced, according to Bloomberg.

This sudden desire to sell off parts of Sonangol is part of a wider Angolan policy to try and kick-start a faltering economy with Angola already having sold 30 companies through a program that runs through 2022. 

Daves de Sousa said at the Bloomberg Invest Africa virtual conference: “We are targeting the end of 2021, beginning of 2022 to start the process of the privatization of the big ones, such as Sonangol and Endiama.” She added: “But all this will depend on how fast we can reorganize those companies. To make sure that with the due diligence process we can capture the interest of high-quality investors.”

Angola is faced with the unwanted statistic of its economy shrinking for the fifth consecutive year. The selling of Sonangol is one of the country’s $4.5-billion program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).