IN SHORT: Angola’s economy expanded by 5.3% year on year in Q1 2026, its strongest quarterly performance since Q2 2024, driven almost entirely by non-oil activities. The non-oil sector grew 6.2% while the oil sector, which accounts for 19% of GDP, contracted by 0.2%. Growth leaders included information and communications at 27.6%, transportation at 16.1%, fishing and aquaculture at 8.7%, electricity at 8.2% and manufacturing at 7.3%. The result confirms Angola’s economic diversification is gaining real momentum even as the oil sector faces structural headwinds.
Angola has delivered its strongest quarterly economic performance in nearly two years, posting 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in Q1 2026 powered by a non-oil sector that grew at 6.2% and demonstrated that the country’s decade-long diversification push is beginning to produce results across telecommunications, logistics, fisheries, manufacturing and energy infrastructure. The data, released by Angola’s Instituto Nacional de Estatística, marks a continuation of the recovery from 2023’s 1.1% annual growth rate and confirms the trajectory of 4.4% growth in 2024 and 5.7% in Q4 2025.
- The standout performer was information and communications, which grew 27.6% year on year in Q1 2026. This reflects the rapid expansion of Angola’s digital infrastructure, including mobile data networks, fintech platforms and e-commerce activity, as urban middle-class consumers in Luanda and other cities shift toward digital financial services and online commerce at pace.
- Transportation grew 16.1%, reflecting the Lobito Corridor railway’s first full quarter of expanded commercial operations following the 2025 rehabilitation completion. The corridor connects Angola’s Port of Lobito to the DRC’s Copperbelt and Zambia, and the restoration of rail freight capacity has generated significant logistics activity uplift for Angolan transport companies.
- Fishing and aquaculture grew 8.7%, continuing the momentum from 2024 when the sector benefited from strong global demand for Angolan fish products and government investment in cold chain infrastructure. Angola has one of Africa’s largest exclusive economic zones and has been investing in industrial fishing capacity to capture more value from its Atlantic ocean resources.
- Electricity grew 8.2%, driven by the expansion of Angola’s hydropower generation capacity. The Laúca hydroelectric dam, Africa’s second-largest, reached full operational capacity in late 2024 and has been generating clean electricity for Angola’s industrial and consumer base through 2026.
- Manufacturing grew 7.3%, reflecting the investment in local production that has followed Angola’s strategic import substitution push, particularly in food processing, construction materials and consumer goods. Angola has been deliberately incentivising domestic manufacturing to reduce import costs and create industrial employment.
- The oil sector contracted 0.2%, a marginal decline that is expected given Angola’s declining mature field production. Angola’s crude production has been falling from its 1.8 million barrels per day peak and OPEC production restraint has further limited output. However, elevated oil prices driven by the Hormuz conflict mean the fiscal contribution of the oil sector remains strong despite volume declines.
Angola’s diversification story is genuinely progressing, but from a very low starting point. Oil still accounts for more than 90% of goods exports and government revenues remain highly dependent on the oil sector despite the non-oil fiscal reform programme. The Q1 2026 growth composition, with services, digital, transport and fishing driving expansion rather than oil or mining, is a fundamentally different pattern from Angola’s historical growth model. Whether the diversification can withstand an oil price correction that would tighten fiscal space and reduce the government’s capacity to invest in the infrastructure and incentive frameworks that are driving non-oil growth is the key question for the medium term.
The Bigger Picture: Angola’s 5.3% Q1 growth is not just an economic data point. It is a validation of a decade of difficult structural reform by President Lourenço’s administration: subsidy removal, FX liberalisation, state enterprise privatisation, Lobito Corridor investment and digital infrastructure expansion. The reward is an economy that is growing despite oil sector weakness rather than because of oil sector strength. That transition is what most African resource economies have been trying to achieve for a generation. Angola, the continent’s third-largest economy, is closer to achieving it than any comparable resource-dependent state on the continent. The Lobito Corridor, which connects Angola to DRC and Zambia mining activity, and the expanding digital economy are the two structural drivers most likely to sustain non-oil growth into the medium term.
Source: TradingView, June 1 2026 / Instituto Nacional de Estatística Angola, Q1 2026
