Kwanza appreciated 15.2 percent against the dollar in 2021

According to the analysis of the evolution of the kwanza carried out by Lusa, the Angolan currency appreciated by 15.2 percent in 2021, from 654.5 kwanzas per dollar on the first day of 2021, to 554.9 kwanzas per dollar, on January 1st of this year.

The appreciation of the national currency, however, is not enough to cancel out the losses recorded since the introduction of the partial liberalization of the kwanza, still in 2017.

At the beginning of 2018, it took only 165 kwanzas to buy a dollar at the official exchange rate, but since then the Angolan currency has been approaching the values ​​practiced in the informal market, considered more in line with the real value of the currency.

On January 1, 2019, 308.6 kwanzas per dollar were already needed, and a year later this value was 482.1 kwanzas, with a new depreciation during 2020, which came to an end with a dollar worth 482. 1 kwanzas, already accentuated by the effect of the economic recession and the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic, which practically eliminated the entry and exit of foreign exchange in the country.

The improvement in the kwanza in 2021 is attributed to the favorable evolution of economic conditions in the country, plunged into recession for five years and still with uncertainty about whether last year the economy will have finally grown.

Angola saw the rating improved by the financial rating agency Moody's, had a financial adjustment program by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whose compliance is praised by the Fund's technicians and benefited from the rise in oil prices, the main raw material of the country, which is worth 90 percent of revenues.

The government estimates that the economy has grown 0.2 percent in 2021 and that this year it will accelerate to 2.4 percent, helped by the expansion of the non-oil economy and by rising oil prices.

Source: xe.com