{"id":9712,"date":"2023-11-01T14:34:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T14:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=9712"},"modified":"2023-11-01T14:34:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T14:34:52","slug":"imf-officials-say-angola-should-let-currency-float","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/9712\/imf-officials-say-angola-should-let-currency-float\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF officials say Angola should let currency float"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angola should let its currency float, International Monetary Fund officials said on Tuesday during a visit to the southern African country, where authorities have kept the kwanza in a tight range for months.<\/p>\n

The government let the kwanza\u00a0drop<\/span>\u00a0by more than one-third over May and June, with analysts linking the move to lower oil revenues and a resumption in external debt payments making it harder for it to prop up the currency.<\/p>\n

But since early July the kwanza has traded in a narrow range around 830 against the U.S. dollar\u00a0AOA=<\/span>. Bloomberg News\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0last week that the central bank had stepped up restrictions on foreign-currency trading to stop the kwanza from weakening further.<\/p>\n

“Our recommendation is for the country to keep up with the floating exchange rate. This is extremely important for Angola, since the floating rate works like a shock absorber for relevant external events,” the IMF’s resident representative for Angola, Victor Lledo, told a news conference in the capital Luanda.<\/p>\n

“There are persistent exchange rate pressures, they are related to fundamentals. … Countries should allow the exchange rate to adjust and to depreciate,” said Catherine Pattillo, deputy director at the IMF’s Africa department.<\/p>\n

Angola’s inflation\u00a0AOCPIY=ECI<\/span>\u00a0slowed sharply in 2022 and over the first half of the year, but in the wake of the kwanza’s May-June depreciation it has picked up again.<\/p>\n

The Bank of Angola lowered its main interest rate\u00a0AOINTR=ECI<\/span>\u00a0in March but has kept it on hold at the three meetings since. It is scheduled to next review its monetary policy next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angola should let its currency float, International Monetary Fund officials said on Tuesday during a visit to the southern African country, where authorities have kept the kwanza in a tight range for months. The government let the kwanza\u00a0drop\u00a0by more than one-third over May and June, with analysts linking the move to lower oil revenues and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,30],"tags":[275,1097,1436,1662,1663],"class_list":["post-9712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-southern-africa","tag-angola","tag-imf","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-kwanza","tag-luanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}