The deputy director of the Africa Training Institute (ATI), who worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a senior economist at the African Department for Angola, participated in a seminar on the challenges of operationalizing monetary policy promoted by the Ministry of Finance (Minfin).
The Brazilian-Canadian economist maintained that one of the premises of current monetary policy is that it is not strong enough to affect the structure of the economy, with structural issues often being more important to reverse low growth and crisis situations than monetary policy. .
"It certainly has a strong effect on inflation, but not so much on the structural growth of economies", he stressed, adding that monetary policy can cushion the effects of unfavorable economic cycles and economic shocks", but unfortunately it does not have the power to generate wealth creation".
With regard to Angola, he stated that the country is carrying out the necessary reforms, starting with the exchange rate regime, implementing the operational independence of the central bank and, more recently, starting to implement the inflation targeting regime.
"Angola is on the right path", stated Carlos Resende. "I see a very favorable development in inflation as the National Bank of Angola implements this regime and I am sure it will do so successfully as it has done with other important reforms", added the ATI official.
For the economist, the central bank has all the technical conditions to implement the inflation targeting regime that he considered important to "anchor inflation expectations".
"It helps to bring down inflation to the extent that the regime is implemented in a credible way and this benefit, in terms of lower inflation, is not associated with a lower cost in terms of growth," he explained.
The economist considered that the BNA has been "extremely judicious" in the reforms made, in order to match its peers and has "all the conditions" to manage inflation targets and instruments to implement a consistent monetary policy.
"I have full confidence that the challenge of high inflation in Angola is just one among many others that the BNA has conquered in a courageous and responsible way", highlighted Carlos Resende, showing that he is convinced that the adoption of this regime will bring benefits to Angola. , as it has brought to other countries that have adopted this system.
"It is another step by the Angolan authorities, another structural reform of the Angolan economy that will help the development of the country as a whole", he underlined.
The central bank has set an inflation target of 18 percent for this year.
