Picture the scene: a hall in Kigali bathed in the bold magenta of the Africa CEO Forum, and at the podium, beneath the black, red, and gold of the Angolan flag, a delegation from Luanda makes its case to a room full of the continent’s most powerful investors. More than 2,800 chief executives, heads of state, fund managers, and bankers from over 75 countries have gathered in Rwanda’s capital. When Angola speaks, they listen—because the story it has come to tell is no longer about promise alone, but about performance.
This was the Africa CEO Forum 2026, held May 14–15 in Kigali, the largest annual gathering of Africa’s private sector. Organized by the Jeune Afrique Media Group together with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, the forum convened under a deliberately provocative theme: “Scale or Fail: Why Africa Must Embrace Shared Ownership.” And among the institutions that arrived ready to scale was Angola’s leading private bank—BAI, PLC—present in Kigali as an official partner of the forum.
From Berlin to Kigali
Readers of the Washington Informer who have followed this series will recognize the momentum. In our first article, we traced the new chapter in Angola–U.S. relations, from President João Lourenço’s visit to Washington to President Biden’s historic trip to Luanda—the first by a sitting U.S. head of state. In our second, we watched Angola steal the spotlight at ITB Berlin as the tourism world’s host country. Kigali was the next move in the same deliberate strategy: having introduced itself to the world, Angola came to Africa’s boardroom to do business.
The numbers in the room were real. Over the two days, participants signed close to US $2 billion in deals, partnerships, and memoranda of understanding, with the IFC alone committing more than US $1 billion across infrastructure, energy, finance, agriculture, and industry. The guest list reflected the stakes: African heads of state including Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu shared the floor with the CEOs of the continent’s largest companies. “Africa’s moment has come,” declared Makhtar Diop, the IFC’s Managing Director. “The talent is there. The capital exists. The ambition is undeniable.” For Angola, that ambition has a name and an address.
Invest in Angola
The centrepiece of Angola’s presence was a session billed simply as “Invest in Angola,” led by José de Lima Massano, Minister of State for Economic Coordination. His message was one of transformation. Angola, long defined by oil, is becoming something new: agriculture has now overtaken petroleum as the single largest contributor to the national economy—a milestone that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and a powerful signal of genuine diversification.
Massano laid out the reforms behind the shift: a dramatically improved business environment, expanded logistics and production infrastructure, fresh incentives for private investment, and surging growth across non-oil sectors—agriculture, manufacturing, energy, logistics, and mining. On the sidelines, he met with African investors, multilateral institutions, and business leaders to turn conversations into commitments. The pitch was confident and specific: Angola is open, reforming, and ready for partners.
Key Strategic Developments
For an American audience, here is why Kigali matters far beyond Angola’s borders. Angola is a founding member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)—a 16-nation bloc of some 380 million people, more than a quarter of Africa’s population. And Angola holds a card no other SADC member can play: the Atlantic coastline and the Lobito Corridor.
The Lobito Corridor—the railway and logistics route linking the Angolan port of Lobito to the copper and cobalt heartlands of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia—is the most significant piece of U.S.-backed infrastructure on the continent. It is more than a mineral route; it is the shortest path between Southern Africa’s resources and the Atlantic, and therefore between the SADC region and the United States. An investor who enters through Angola does not enter a single market. They enter a gateway to Southern Africa.
This is the “shared ownership” the forum called for, made concrete. As regional value chains integrate and capital pools across borders, Angola is positioning itself as the western doorway to a continental market—and BAI as the financial institution that holds the key to investment perspectives and materialisation.
BAI Takes Its Seat at Africa’s Table
BAI’s presence in Kigali as an official partner was a statement of standing. As Angola’s foremost private bank, BAI travelled alongside the Banco Nacional de Angola and the Sovereign Fund of Angola, completing a delegation that paired public credibility with private-sector muscle.
Leading the bank’s delegation was Luís Lélis, President of BAI’s Executive Commission, who took part in the forum’s high-level discussions on financing and investment in Africa. His own credentials underscore the bank’s trajectory: in 2026 Lélis was named Best Banking CEO of Angola by International Investor magazine. Away from the main stage, in the quieter rooms where deals are actually made, BAI worked the bilateral meeting circuit—sitting across the table from international financiers and development banks. There, the bank did what it does best: connecting global capital to Angolan and regional opportunity, project by project, relationship by relationship.
BAI: Your Bridge to the SADC Opportunity
For the American investor asking the same question we posed in our earlier articles—“How do I begin?”—the answer remains constant. It begins with BAI, PLC.
Whether you are an infrastructure developer eyeing the Lobito Corridor, an agribusiness investor drawn to Angola’s fast-rising farm sector, an energy or mining group seeking a foothold in Southern Africa, or a financial institution looking for a trusted partner on the ground, BAI offers the local expertise, institutional credibility, and international-standard financial services to make your engagement seamless and secure. In Berlin, Angola showed the world its rhythm. In Kigali, it showed the world its balance sheet. And in both, the bridge between Angola’s opportunity and American capital carried the same name: BAI.
For further inquiries: Fábio Correia, Communications Manager (Fabio.Correia@bancobai.ao)
