According to the final statement of the 121st meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), in 2023, international reserves stood at 14.7 billion dollars.
"The increase in international reserves [by more than 884.4 million dollars] was due to the appreciation of reserve assets, especially gold, and the return of financial investments," said the governor of the central bank, Tiago Dias.
Tiago Dias highlighted that at the beginning of 2024, financing of 960 million dollars was granted to the National Treasury, which impacted international reserves, but throughout the year, due to the appreciation of gold and the return on investments, "the level" was recovered of international reserves".
"We maintained this level of around 14.7 billion dollars, the position with which we closed the year 2023. At the end of the year, and as established by the law of the National Bank of Angola, the National Treasury reimbursed the National Bank of Angola, in several installments, the financing that had been granted to it", he said.
According to Tiago Dias, the reimbursement led to a substantial increase in international reserves at the end of the year, reaching 15.6 billion dollars.
"We understand that this was a replacement of the previous position, but the increase in international reserves is explained once again by the appreciation of gold and the return on our investments," he noted.
Regarding the foreign exchange market, commercial banks acquired 10.8 billion dollars last year, compared to 9.8 billion dollars in 2023.
The exchange rate depreciated by 9.12 percent in the year, compared to the 39.2 percent observed in 2023, the BNA governor also said, highlighting that "for some time now" there has been exchange rate stabilization, at 912 kwanzas per dollar.
"In December, we already had a tendency for the national currency to depreciate, but thanks to some foreign exchange sales that were made, commercial banks understood that the exchange rate should return to its previous level," he said.
Tiago Dias highlighted that, unlike 2023, last year the exchange rate situation improved substantially, although not enough "to meet the expectations of economic agents".
With regard to transactions involving individuals, in December 2024, the BNA requested commercial banks to report all pending transactions and, exceptionally, sold foreign currency to meet these cases.
"We also know that there has been a lot of noise, particularly outside the country, and this could impact the country's business environment. We have also requested that the operations of airlines operating in the country be reported to us and we have also sold foreign exchange so that commercial banks could clear the airlines' pending operations," he said.
"We have not yet reached the optimum, but there have been substantial improvements at the level of the foreign exchange market," he reiterated.
