The central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (CPM) also decided to maintain the interest rate on the Permanent Liquidity Absorption Facility at 18.5 percent and increase the coefficient on mandatory reserves in national currency from 20 percent to 21 percent.
This increase in the BNA's main rates comes at a time when the country is experiencing uncontrolled inflation, which reached 28.02 percent in April and a year-on-year variation of almost 40 percent in Luanda.
According to the governor of the BNA, Manuel Tiago Dias, the CPM's decisions were "motivated by the persistence of inflationary pressures" and aim to contribute to the "control of liquidity in circulation".
Speaking on Friday at the end of the CPM's ordinary meeting, in Luanda, he reaffirmed the INE data from April, stating that the increase in food prices "results, fundamentally, from the insufficient supply of widely consumed products in the economy, having taking into account the reduction in imports that has not been compensated to the same extent by the increase in national production".
Angolan economist Wilson Chimoco defended, last week, in statements to Lusa, an intervention by the central bank to curb "uncontrolled prices" in the country.
The stock of credit to the economy in national currency reached 4.72 billion kwanzas in April, representing an increase of 150 billion kwanzas in accumulated terms in the year 2024.
The accumulated surplus balance of the goods account in the months of March and April 2024 stood at 4.3 billion dollars, above the 3.3 billion dollars recorded in the previous two months.
"In accumulated terms, the balance of the goods account reached 7.6 billion dollars, above the 6.4 billion dollars in the same period last year, corresponding to an increase of 19.04 percent", he highlighted.
The stock of international reserves stood at 14.5 billion dollars in April, which corresponds to a degree of coverage of 7.43 months of imports of goods and services.
The next CPM meeting will take place on the 18th and 19th of July in the province of Cuando Cubango.
