According to the person in charge, the amount varies depending on its market price: "500 million dollars is the value of physically moving 640,000 metric tons of product. Of this value varies a lot depending on its market price", he said, quoted by Rádio Nacional de Angola (RNA).
The amount spent was intended for the purchase of some food products that are part of the basic basket, such as rice, wheat flour, corn, bonbó, sugar, beans, massango, cooking oil and chicken leg, which are mostly imported goods, refers to Angop.
Already for this year, due to the incentive program for national production, along with imports, the REA has forecast a reserve of around 520 thousand tons.
With regard to forecasts for the present year, Eduardo Machado considered that acquisitions may be superior, given that there is a predisposition, with certain uneasiness, of changing the "core business" of some agents, as they measure the decrease in profit margins with the marketing of basic basket goods currently at reference prices, writes Angop.
Certain agents "do not interest them, that is, they do not have great benefits with the prices currently practiced", informed the official, adding, quoted by Angop, that when this happens, it is necessary to replace that offer, forcing the REA to adopt a behavior with more importance in view of what is the stability of the offer and according to what will be the behavior of the operators.
He also explained that with the current level of prices, agents with a certain size and expressiveness in what is their capacity and structure are still on the market. However, otherwise, "the operators will leave the market and then the REA will have to assume its role", adding that they do not like to intervene.
"We don't like to intervene. We like to stay quiet and let the market work by itself", said the official, who, quoted by Angop, added that the reserve is ready to go up to 1.2 billion tons in the direction to preserve the prevailing price levels.
It should be noted that the official was speaking this Tuesday, as part of the presentation of a study on the impact of the REA on the behavior of prices for the basic food basket.
