| | The EIU's regular reports on Angola have gained a general reputation not least among Western businessmen and bankers as the best, and often indeed the only, source of reliable information on the country's current economic and politicomilitary situation. Last year their author, Tony Hodges, was able to make his first return visit to the country since October 1975, when as a journalist in the frontier area with Unit Forces he 'scooped' the headline news of South Africa's first major invasion. During his recent visit he was able to interview senior government officials, collect unpublished statistics from economic ministries, and renew his own impressions of the country and its people. Reading his special report after having recently worked two years in Angola, I found it pulled together a lot of information about situations and developments which I had observed but about which I had no generalised knowledge, given the almost complete lack of economic data and analysis published within the country. This is not for any 'paranoid' security reasons but because of a lack of felt need and a shortage of economists and administrators able to produce such data. The report therefore represents a very useful addition to our knowledge and understanding of this Frontline state. |
