The Lobito Corridor as an Anchor of Economic and Value Chain Development in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia: Exploring the Issues

ABSTRACT The development of the Lobito Corridor offers immense opportunities for trade, economic transformation, development and regional integration in Southern Africa. This paper discusses the role of the Lobito Corridor in supporting development in the three member states. Using a random effects panel model estimated using the structural gravity model, the paper evaluated the corridor's infrastructure, value chain, and regional integration capacity as the main explanatory variables using six main variables namely corridor remoteness, regional trade agreements, corridor imports, special economic zone, corridor geographical distance and corridor infrastructure. The results showed that the corridor's infrastructural capacity, capacity to anchor critical value chains and regional integration all had a positive impact on the volume of exports moved through the corridor. The paper concluded that the development of the corridor can be leveraged to reorient Southern Africa's transport infrastructure to drive economic development and transformation through agriculture and mining value chains and facilitation of the strengthening of bilateral and multilateral relations along the corridor.