Angola mulls tax break to revive diamond industry

Angola’s special taxation director of the General Tax Administration Pedro Marques was quoted by Xinhua as saying that the move was meant to encourage diamond companies to produce and sell more stones.
“Angola expects to obtain 42 billion kwanzas (about 63.1 million U.S. dollars) in taxes from the diamond industry in 2021,” he said.
“Next year we will advise and help companies on how they can benefit from the various incentives that have been provided in the mining code, how companies can benefit from reduced tax costs and periods of grace in the payment of income tax.”
Angola is projected to have collected up to 27.9 billion kwanzas ($41.9 million) in tax from the diamond industry in the first nine months of 2020.
Angola produced 5.3 million carats of diamonds between January and August this year.
Endiama had targeted to produce 10.5 million carats this year and realise revenue of $1.4 billion.
However, the country will miss its target due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Angola earned about $1.3 billion from just over 9.44 million carats of diamonds sold in 2019.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished