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The Economy of Angola is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world,〔Birgitte Refslund Sørensen and Marc Vincent. ''Caught Between Borders: Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced'', 2001. Page 17.〕 with reported annual average GDP growth of 11.1 percent for the period from 2001 to 2010. It is still recovering from the Angolan Civil War that plagued the country from independence in 1975 until 2002. Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. Since 2002, when the 27-year civil war ended, the nation has worked to repair and improve ravaged infrastructure and weakened political and social institutions. High international oil prices and rising oil production have contributed to the very strong economic growth since 1998,〔Google Public Data. Retrieved 2013-8-14.〕 but corruption and public-sector mismanagement remain, particularly in the oil sector, which accounts for over 50 percent of GDP, over 90 percent of export revenue, and over 80 percent of government revenue. ==History== The Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the Angolan coast in 1484, after which Portugal began to found trading posts and forts along the shore. Paulo Dias de Novais founded Sāo Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575. São Felipe de Benguella (Benguela) followed in 1587. The principal early trade was in slaves. Portuguese merchants purchased the slaves from the local Imbangala and Mbundu peoples, notable slave hunters, and sold them to the sugar plantations in Brazil. Brazilian ships were frequent visitors to Luanda and Benguela and Angola functioned as a kind of colony of Brazil, with Brazilian Jesuits active in its religious and educational centers. The Portuguese Empire was neglected during the period of the Iberian Union, which lasted from 1580 to 1640. The Dutch, bitter enemies of their former masters in Spain, invaded many Portuguese overseas possessions. During Portugal's separatist war against Spain, the Dutch occupied Luanda as "Fort Aardenburgh" from 1640 to 1648. They used the territory to supply their own slaves to the sugarcane plantations of Northeastern Brazil (Pernambuco, Olinda, Recife), which they had also seized from Portugal. John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, conquered the Portuguese possessions of Saint George del Mina, Saint Thomas, and Luanda, Angola, on the west coast of Africa. Portugal recovered the territory from 1648 to 1650. In the high plains, the Planalto, the most important native states were Bié and Bailundo, the latter being noted for its production of foodstuffs and rubber. Portugal expanded into their territory, but did not control much of the interior prior to the late 19th century. The Portuguese started to develop townships, trading posts, logging camps and small processing factories. From 1764 onwards, there was a gradual change from a slave-based society to one based on production for domestic consumption and export. Following the independence of Brazil in 1822, the slave trade was formally abolished in 1836 (although it continued locally into the 20th century). In 1844, Angola's ports were opened to foreign shipping. By 1850, Luanda was one of the greatest and most developed Portuguese cities in the vast Portuguese Empire outside Mainland Portugal, full of trading companies, exporting peanut oil, copal, timber, and cocoa. The principal exports of the post-slave economy in the 19th century were rubber, beeswax, and ivory. Maize, tobacco, dried meat and cassava flour also began to be produced locally. Prior to the First World War, exportation of coffee, palm kernels and oil, cattle, leather and hides, and salt fish joined the principal exports, with small quantities of gold and cotton also being produced. Grains, sugar, and rum were also produced for local consumption. The principal imports were foodstuffs, cotton goods, hardware, and British coal. Legislation against foreign traders was implemented in the 1890s. The territory's prosperity, however, continued to depend on plantations worked by labor "indentured" from the interior. From the 1920s to the 1960s, strong economic growth, abundant natural resources and development of infrastructure, led to the arrival of even more Portuguese settlers. Petroleum was known to exist from the mid-19th century, but modern exploitation began in 1955. Production began in the Cuanza basin in the 1950s, in the Congo basin in the 1960s, and in the exclave of Cabinda in 1968. The Portuguese government granted operating rights for Block Zero to the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco, in 1955.〔 Oil production surpassed the exportation of coffee as Angola's largest export in 1973. A leftist military-led coup d'état, started on April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, overthrew the Marcelo Caetano government in Portugal, and promised to hand over power to an independent Angolan government. Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, met with António de Spínola, the transitional President of Portugal, on September 15, 1974 on Sal island in Cape Verde, crafting a plan to empower Holden Roberto of the National Liberation Front of Angola, Jonas Savimbi of UNITA, and Daniel Chipenda of the MPLA's eastern faction at the expense of MPLA leader Agostinho Neto while retaining the façade of national unity. Mobutu and Spínola wanted to present Chipenda as the MPLA head, Mobutu particularly preferring Chipenda over Neto because Chipenda supported autonomy for Cabinda. The Angolan exclave has immense petroleum reserves estimated at around 300 million tons (~300 kg) which Zaire, and thus the Mobutu government, depended on for economic survival.〔Erik P. Hoffmann and Frederic J. Fleron. ''The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy'', 1980. Page 524.〕 After independence thousands of white Portuguese left, most of them to Portugal and many travelling overland to South Africa. There was an immediate crisis because the indigenous African population lacked the skills and knowledge needed to run the country and maintain its well-developed infrastructure. The Angolan government created Sonangol, a state-run oil company, in 1976. Two years later Sonangol received the rights to oil exploration and production in all of Angola. After independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola was ravaged by a horrific civil war between 1975 and 2002. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Economy of Angola」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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