The measure, which came into force at 00:00, was announced on Monday night through a note from the Petroleum Derivatives Regulatory Institute.
The price of other products, under a fixed price regime, namely gasoline, illuminating oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), remains unchanged.
The government decided to gradually adjust petroleum products to market levels by 2025, starting the process with the change in the price of gasoline in June 2023, which went from 160 kwanzas to the current 300 kwanzas.
The executive had recently noted that the increase would happen, although without advancing a date for the application of the new prices.
In an interview with Lusa, last week, the Minister of Finance, Vera Daves, stated that there was still no certainty about when there would be a new withdrawal of subsidies.
"I never said there wouldn't be [an increase]. What I said is that we were continually considering the best time for this to happen. And why do I say that? I say that because of inflation (...). Certainly [ there will be an increase], when we haven't decided yet", said the minister in Washington, on the sidelines of the 2024 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
The minister explained that "fuels are currently subsidized and a political decision was taken to gradually remove this subsidy", stressing that "that's what it's all about".
"What remains to be decided, and we continue to dialogue and deepen this reflection, is the cadence and the products, being certain - and this decision has also already been taken - that we do not intend to change the subsidies for cooking gas and lighting oil, so that these are products that we want to keep protected", he declared.
"The products for which we want to remove the subsidy are gasoline and diesel. We have already made a first move on gasoline. Obviously there are things that went less well and we learned the lessons and want to calibrate, but in relation to mitigation measures", he added the minister.
The process of removing fuel subsidies began in 2023 and continued in March of this year, with the removal of exemptions for taxi drivers, despite criticism and claims about the social and economic reality of families, who complain about the daily increase in household assets. basic basket.
Just last month, the IMF encouraged the Government to continue reforms, including the removal of fuel subsidies, to better prepare the country for possible global shocks, especially those in the oil market.
When the fuel reform, repeatedly defended by the IMF, was launched in early 2023, Angola was the fourth cheapest country in the world to fill a fuel tank.
State spending on fuel subsidies is expected to have fallen by 213 million euros last year, according to the 2024 Budget report, which predicts that in 2023 Angola will have spent more than two billion dollars on this item, a reduction of around 10 percent compared to the 2.2 billion dollars spent in 2022.
