Tiago Dias, who was speaking at a press conference, at the end of the 118th ordinary meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), held on Thursday and Friday, in the city of Menongue, capital of the province of Cuando Cubango, mentioned that, if there is no change in prices, the prospect is that monthly inflation rates will continue to fall.
"This means that we will be at a level of monthly inflation rates lower than the monthly inflation rates observed in the same period last year", he highlighted.
According to Tiago Dias, the annual inflation rate is currently 30 percent, "well above" the inflation target of around 23 percent, he acknowledged.
"We have already noticed a slowdown in terms of monthly inflation rates, inflation continues to rise, but at a less sustained pace than what we had been observing until April", he highlighted.
According to the BNA governor, monthly inflation in June slowed to 2.07 percent compared to the 2.49 percent observed in the previous month, with the food and non-alcoholic beverages category contributing 64 percent.
Of the 732 products that make up the matrix of the national consumer price index, 24 contributed 1.15 percent percentage points to total inflation, corresponding to 55.75 percent of total inflation, with emphasis on tomatoes (0.16 percent), onion (0.10 percent) and chicken thighs (0.09 percent).
The accumulated inflation rate since the beginning of the year stood at 15.72 percent and the same rate at 31 percent, with a contribution of 66.58 percent from the food and non-alcoholic beverages category.
The BNA Monetary Policy Committee decided to maintain the interest rate at 19.5 percent, given the slowdown in price growth in the economy, resulting from the relative improvement in the supply of essential consumer goods and the control of liquidity.
Tiago Dias highlighted that the interest rate on the permanent liquidity-providing facility was also maintained, at 20.5 percent, and the interest rate on the permanent liquidity absorption facility, at 18.5 percent.
