File photo: CGTN

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a west-coast country of south-central Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa.

Facts

The Republic of Angola

Capital: Luanda

Population: 29,250,000

Area: It is the seventh-largest country in Africa, bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west

Major languages: Portuguese

Life expectancy: Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and one of the world's lowest life expectancies. A 2007 survey concluded that low and deficient niacin status was common in Angola.

Currency: Kwanza (AOA)

Membership in UN, OPEC, African Union

Head of State:  President João Lourenço

Vice President Bornito de Sousa

Government : unitary dominant-party presidential constitutional republic

Economy 

Angola has diamonds, oil, gold, copper and a rich wildlife (dramatically impoverished during the civil war), forest and fossil fuels. The country has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world, especially since the end of the civil war; Angola's economic growth is highly uneven, with most of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population.

Angola-China relations

Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with visiting Angolan President Lourenço in Beijing in October 2018, agreeing to continue developing bilateral ties.

Xi said he is glad to see the second visit to Beijing in about a month by Lourenco, who came to attend the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in early September 2018.

Angola expresses its hopes to receive more Chinese investments to boost the Luanda-Bengo Special Economic Zone in the African country, according to Joao Salvador dos Santos Neto, Angola's ambassador to China.

China is willing to promote bilateral relationships with Angola to a new stage, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in January 2018, during his new year visit to the continent of Africa.

China supports Angola in pursuing a development path that suits its own conditions, promoting its economic diversification strategy and enhancing its self-development capacity.

China hopes to strengthen pragmatic cooperation with Angola, promote bilateral relationships to a new level, and expand new areas of cooperation.