A Chinese-owned company in Angola, Niodior Indústria, has opened a factory in Luanda for making motor tricycles suitable for Angolan roads at the rate of 11,000 a year, Jornal de Angola says.

The factory cost US$15 million to set up, the newspaper reported last Sunday, the day after it opened.

The report quotes Niodior President Chen Zhihao as saying the factory has 50 workers making Kewezeki 200 cc motor tricycles.

Mr Chen said it would later begin making vehicles for carrying water tanks or one tonne of other cargo, or for use as ambulances or for other purposes.

The report quotes Angolan Minister of Trade and Industry Victor Fernandes as saying the vehicles produced may be useful in the businesses of transport and logistics, so inspiring the formation of small enterprises.

The factory envisages taking on 150 more workers so it can begin exporting vehicles to neighbouring Congo-Kinshasa, Zambia and Namibia, Jornal de Angola says.