Moe Nesr, Director General, AngoAlissar

Economic and political instability in southern Africa has made the region a challenging place for enterprises. Now that Angola has left years of a civil conflict in the past and a boom in oil revenues is bringing unprecedented prosperity to its people, well-established firms like AngoAlissar are using their distribution networks and knowledge of the local market to create new opportunities.

AngoAlissar’s founders started out in Kinshasa, in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, 38 years ago. By 1992, political upheaval back home motivated them to seek out business opportunities in Angola, where Luanda’s greater security and stability offered a better climate for growth. The company started out trading consumer goods such as clothing and plastics, but Angola’s great need for agricultural and food imports – particularly pasta, tomato paste, milk, and palm oil – quickly led AngoAlissar to begin importing and distributing food.

Today, AngoAlissar is one of Angola’s leading distribution companies, operating in seven provinces with a network of agents, vendors, and retailers across the country. “We count on 15 years of experience here, identifying the right product with the right quality for the right market,” says AngoAlissar Director General, Moe Nesr. “But diversification is also an important issue for us. We have a transportation company with 30 trucks, and we have a logistics center that supports other companies as well as our own businesses. In addition to that, we have another distribution company for construction materials. The growth of that sector will be huge.”

With the arrival of peace in Angola, Mr. Nesr is preparing AngoAlissar to move into agricultural distribution. “I believe that our wide network makes AngoAlissar the best distribution company in the country. Currently we are looking for partners to enter the agriculture sector, because we don’t have the know-how yet. Our distribution networks mean that we are a good potential partner in agriculture, and our knowledge of how the local market and economy operate is also a plus.”