The head of the department for Macroeconomic Policy and Management at the ministry, Martins Afonso, presented this Thursday the evolution of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2023 and said that the quarterly decline is not symptomatic of recession.
"This growth of minus 1.1 percent is a quarterly rate, but the year-on-year variation represents a growth of 0.3 percent, now when we compare it with the fourth quarter of 2022, there we will register a decline of 2,3 percentage points", replied the official to Lusa during a "briefing" with the press.
According to Martins Afonso, the record of GDP for the first three months of 2023 does not translate into a recession: "But the economy stagnated due to an abrupt drop in the oil sector".
"And what happened in this sector is that the amount of production here dropped significantly and this was reflected in the drop in exports and reflected in this drop has a strong influence on the ability to input resources, that is, which are foreign exchange", maintained.
Angola's GDP stood at 0.3 percent in the first three months of 2023, year-on-year, and fell by 1.1 percent compared to the previous quarter, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
According to the Quick Information Sheet, to which Lusa had access, this is the first time that quarterly GDP has slipped into negative territory since the second quarter of 2021.
The decline in oil exploration and refining activity (1.11 percentage points) was the basis for the negative quarterly variation and anemic growth in the first quarter of 2023.
In year-on-year terms, the Gross Value Added (GVA) of oil fell by 8.0 percent, in the first quarter of 2023, compared to the same quarter of 2023, contributing negatively by 2 percentage points to the total change in GDP.
Asked about the actions to counteract the stagnation registered in the Angolan economy in that period, Martins Afonso pointed to the structuring programs such as the grain production plan and the fishing and livestock production plans as "solutions".
According to the official, these plans "will boost the process of economic diversification and contribute to the growth of the non-oil sector" and the challenge that already exists today "is a gradual decrease of the oil sector in the weight of GDP".
He also highlighted, in his speech, the GDP growth of 0.3 percent in the last quarter, referring that this was "sustained mainly by the non-oil sector which grew by 2.8 percent despite a contraction in oil GDP in 8 percent".
"The performance of non-oil GDP at 2.8 percent was sustained mainly by the transport sector, which grew 27 percent and the extraction sector with 22.9 percent, energy and water, 7.80 percent and others", highlighted yet.
The oil sector continues to have a greater share of Angola's total revenues.
