"Looking forward, a combination of reforms is needed to meet fiscal and debt targets and ensure sustainability and stability, this includes maintaining fiscal discipline as well as continuing to implement structural fiscal reforms and diversification plans. ", Lemaire said.
Speaking to Lusa following the release of the IMF report on sub-Saharan Africa, within the scope of the Fund's Spring Meetings, this economist from the African department considered that "Angola has been resilient in the face of external shocks and the political cycle" and added that the recovery of economic growth last year is based on the non-oil sector.
"The recovery in 2022 was driven by the overall strong performance of the non-oil sector and the recovery of the oil sector, which recovered but grew at a slower-than-expected pace due to temporary maintenance operations in the fourth quarter", according to Thibault Lemaire.
For the IMF, Angola's average growth in the coming years will not exceed 4 percent, and should accelerate from 2.8 percent in 2022, to 3.5 percent this year, and 3.7 percent in 2024, the year when inflation should finally drop to single digits.
"In February, inflation reached the lowest level in seven years, driven by the continued slowdown in the increase in food products and by favorable base effects", said the economist, predicting that inflation "continues to slow down and reach the target of the Single-digit Banco Nacional de Angola by the end of 2024".
After the expanded financing program, which ended in December 2021, the IMF "keep in close contact since the conclusion of the expanded financing program, in December 2021, including technical assistance in budget reforms and monetary policy operations", there is still, concludes Thibault Lemaire, a "post-evaluation mission to the funding program scheduled for May 2023".
