Luanda-The National Bank of Angola (BNA) foresees for 2024 a growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at 2.2 percent, supported by the non-oil sector that could grow 4.25 %, announced in Luanda on Friday, the governor of the Angolan Central Bank, Manuel Tiago Dias.
According to the final report of the 115th Meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (CPM), chaired by the BNA, the 19% inflation rate perspective is based on continuous slowdown, short -term goods and services, chain limitation of internal supply, as well as the constraints in the international logistics chain.
According to the governor of BNA, who presented the CPM report, he said the committee decided to maintain permanent liquidity interest rates at 18.5 % and ease at 17.5 %.
On the contrary, it deliberated the increase in the coefficient of mandatory reserves in national currency to 20 %, with the aim of adapting the level of liquidity to economic activity and mitigating inflations.
The CPM meeting, which appreciated the behavior of the national economy in 2023 and projected this year, revealed that last year's inflation rate reached 20 % compared to 13.86 % in the year 2022.
Manuel Tiago Dias clarified that this fact was due to the increase in the class of food and non-alcoholic beverages with 12.74 percentage points, followed by various goods and services with 1, 69 percent, as well as the health class found an increase of 11 percentage points.
In the monetary domain, the national currency registered an expansion of 10.72% in December 2023, raising the accumulated variation to 34%.
In turn, the monetary aggregate, also in national currency, expanded 1.14 % in the same period, which raised the expansion accumulated to 31.17 %.
This occurred due to increased credit assignment to the private sector in national currency, in the order of 18.5 % in 2023.
Still on the national economy and according to the statistics and prices, released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), monthly inflation in December 2023 was 2.42 %, influenced by non -alcoholic food and beverage classes with 1.67 Percentage points, followed by various goods and services with 0.21 percentage points and the health sector with 0.12.
According to the governor, the highest price variations occurred in health classes with 3.5%, various goods and services (2.95%), food and non -alcoholic beverages (2.83%), as well as clothing and shoes with 2 , 57 percent.
Regarding product contributions, 24 of 732 national consumer prices matrix products contributed 1.31 percentage points in total inflation, which corresponded to 53.97 %, with highlighting the class of food and beverage products not alcoholic.
Regarding the average price of the oil barrel, it was set at $ 82.2, representing a 16.89 % reduction compared to the same period (2022), due to the slowdown in industrial production.
According to the governor, the private sector credit stock, in national currency, reached 4.13 billion kwanzas, having recorded an increase of 644 billion kwanzas in 2023.
In the foreign currency account, it registered a surplus balance of the assets account, which set $ 885 million in 2023, below USD 32.8 billion, registered in the same period (2022).
This amount corresponds to a reduction of 36 %, equivalent to $ 12 billion, such as reflexes of reducing export revenues by 28 %, about $ 14 billion.
Import values reduced by 12.6 %, with $ 17 billion (2022) to USD 15 billion, by 2023, with enhancement for imports of food goods whose imported quantities decreased by 33 %.
The stock of international reserves stood at 14.73 billion dollars, until the end of last December, exactly the same level as the previous year, which corresponds to covering 8 months of imports of goods and services.
Regarding the international situation, the BNA governor mentioned the recently published World Bank (WB) report, which points out that the world economy grew 2.6% in 2023, driven by the performance of emerging and advanced economies, with emphasis on China and the United States of America.
For the outlook for 2024, the BM points to a growth of 2.4% in the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), reflecting the effects of the restrictive monetary policies of the world's main banks.
The next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (CPM) will take place in the province of Bengo on the 14th and 15th of March this year. OPF/AC/DOJ
