"It has to be recognized that a considerable weight has been raised in these last three years in extremely difficult conditions, especially for an oil exporting country like Angola. The year 2020 was a very difficult year and despite all that, complicated measures were persevered, complex, difficult to be introduced", said Marcos Souto.
The IMF representative was speaking at the first edition of the Angola Economic Outlook 2023, which took place in Luanda.
Asked about the IMF's support for the Government of Angola, Marcos Souto said that "it is not yet" the result he would like to see.
"There is a lot of work to be done, but it is important that we continue with our efforts", he stressed.
Marcos Souto highlighted that the main risk for the Angolan economy "still remains in the price of oil", so "it is necessary to reduce exposure to this risk", with an increasing weight of other sectors in economic activity in Angola.
In 2020, due to the covid-19 pandemic and the drop in oil prices, the country that was on a trend of improving its macroeconomic indicators was affected by these factors and exposure, underlined the official.
"I think this is a fundamental issue, one of the main themes of this debate, it was raised by several leaders of the economic team, including the point of view of importance within the National Development Plan the issue of economic diversification", he added.
The IMF representative in Angola stressed that the State alone is not in a position to make all the effort necessary to achieve diversification and inclusive economic growth and to create better conditions for the population, including more jobs.
"The Government by itself is not able, it does not have enough resources for this. I heard here several times in the questions the question of are we going to give more subsidies for this, for that, for loans, government resources are limited and the needs are countless" , noted.
According to Marcos Souto, the allocation of resources has to be done "in a judicious way", with the need to identify the main causes that lead, for example, to the difficulty of obtaining credit.
"It is not simply a question of high interest rates, it is not simply a question of imposing a certain behavior on banks, perhaps they are not prepared, there are issues of a structural nature that need to be addressed, starting, for example, with the question of human capacity, so that the population is able to present projects that are bankable, that banks feel comfortable in investing", he underlined.
