“We are going to continue with a restrictive monetary policy because, despite the record of a decline in inflation, it remains at high levels, the year-on-year rate is above 20 percent, and there is work that must continue, but we must proceed with prudence. ", said the governor, when asked by journalists about the possibility of lowering the reference rate.
"We are keen to make conditions more relaxed, but we have to follow this path realistically, our first mission is price stability", he said, speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the seminar 'New Cycle of the Angola Economy', in Universidade Nova, in Carcavelos, organized by the Portugal Angola Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The central bank governor recalled the measures that were taken recently, "namely the mandatory reserve ratio, which is already in the direction of relief, but the nominal interest rate is negative, that is, it is lower than inflation, and will be at this point a generic approach to rate decline is premature".
Even so, Lima Massano recalled that the bank has already taken measures to encourage economic recovery and the financing of commercial banking: "In relation to the real sector of the economy, the bank has taken a set of initiatives to, in this context of price stability and the need to of having a contractionary monetary policy, not to stop supporting the real sector, and commercial banks received a set of incentives so that, with lower rates, they can support the real sector, with emphasis on the production of food goods, there we have a rate of 7.5 percent which is quite competitive", he concluded.
In the initial intervention, Lima Massano had already said that the main objective of the institution's monetary policy is to ensure that inflation drops to single digits by 2024.
"We are migrating to an inflation targeting regime, we have seen a drop in inflation in Angola, and the April data on price developments in Luanda show the lowest value since July 2015", he said.
"The goal is single-digit inflation, this week the National Statistics Institute releases May figures, and the outlook is for an even sharper fall than in April, and we expect inflation to end the year at 18 percent, and we aim for single-digit growth by 2024," added the central bank governor.
