LUANDA (Reuters) - Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos travelled to China on Monday in a bid to increase Chinese loans to the oil-producing nation, state-owned Radio Nacional de Angola said on Monday.
Angola, which rivals Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa's biggest oil producer, has borrowed around $5 billion (3.3 billion pounds) in oil-backed loans from China to help rebuild roads, bridges and ailing communications since the end of its 27-year civil war in 2002.
The two-day trip to China takes place at a time when the oil-rich nation is considering revising a $42 billion spending plan for 2009 as oil prices plummet amid fears of a global recession.
The southwestern African nation and former Portuguese colony is China's biggest crude oil supplier. Angola's secretary of state for Water, Luis Filipe da Silva, said he hoped Angola would be able to benefit from new lines of credit to carry out future investments in its water and sewage system.
"The water sector is one of the sectors that has benefited a lot from lines of credit from China," said Filipe da Silva in comments broadcast on Radio Nacional de Angola.
"There are more investments on the pipeline and we hope that new lines of credit will be made available."
(Reporting by Henrique Almeida; editing by Ralph Boulton)
