José de Lima Massano, who was speaking in Bié, after the 111th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, recalled that oil and gas generate about 95 percent of foreign exchange resources for Angola, so that any change in the quantities produced or prices in international markets influence the functioning of the economy.
"And in the first four months of the year, what we observed was a drop in export earnings", he underlined, indicating that this had repercussions on the supply of currencies that were also visible on the Bloomberg FXGO platform, available for negotiations in foreign currency between large exporters. and buyers.
"[Especially in the last two months] we registered a drop of 40 percent in this platform of exchange resources and we started to witness a series of situations, some of which we had already overcome, of pending operations", said Lima Massano.
The person in charge realized that they started to receive complaints about operations that were not taking place in due time.
"The instrument we have for correcting supply and demand is price and what we are witnessing is this new adjustment, determined by market forces, which is leading to pressure on the national currency", he said, indicating that, since January, the kwanza has depreciated 7 percent against the dollar.
The governor stressed that the BNA is responsible for price stability in the economy, stressing that the exchange rate is a very important factor in price formation, but it is also responsible for maintaining international reserves, which must be kept at a minimum level of six months of imports, where they are currently.
On the other hand, he noted that the BNA acts whenever there are distortions in the market, especially when they can be understood as transitory.
"At the moment, we have no indication that the reduction observed in the supply of foreign exchange in the last two months is something temporary, so that if we had to intervene to maintain the exchange rate, international reserves would have already fallen by around 1 billion euros. dollars, an exercise that would cause further damage to the economy", he explained, speaking of market adjustments
"The market has been adjusting, but we understand that this adjustment also causes risks and, therefore, we decided to make securities held by the BNA in foreign currency available to economic operators and citizens, investing in national currency", he stressed.
The governor considered that, in this way, there are conditions to preserve savings and manage the exchange rate risk. "It was the instrument we found to smooth things over", he went on, noting that "it is not an intervention per se, nor any situation that could be understood as panic".
"What we are witnessing is a market correction in the face of the new balances imposed by this phenomenon of sharp reduction in our exports in a relatively short period", he stressed.
Lima Massano stated that inflation is a matter of great concern for the BNA, "which is responsible for preserving the value of the currency and its purchasing power", and whose action is aimed at influencing price stability in the economy.
"Inflation is an evil, it creates poverty (...) We will continue to ensure price stability in the economy with the instruments we have at our disposal", guaranteed the BNA official.
This year, the "ambition" is to bring inflation to a range between nine and 11 percent, but it is necessary to assess the impact of the devaluation of the kwanza.
"We continue to work in this direction, we will now see what this impact of the more accentuated variation in the price of the currency brings us, which turned out to be one of the reasons that leads us at this time to keep the monetary policy rates unchanged", he concluded.
