"We see this crisis as an opportunity to accelerate the reforms we were implementing with support from the IMF under the 4.5 billion dollars financial assistance program," said the minister during a session at the Annual Fund Meetings, that take place this year in virtual format.
In the 'Conversation of Governors', in which he answered questions posed by the director of the African department of the IMF, Abebe Aemro Selassie, Vera Daves explained that Angola faced, at the beginning of the spread of the pandemic, a set of difficulties that exacerbated an economic environment already itself very challenging.
"We entered the pandemic in a situation where the economy was already facing weaknesses in relation to growth, our ability to increase revenues, we had a lot of pressure on spending due to the need to launch infrastructure, and we were pressured on debt too" ruler.
In addition, he added, "the borders have closed, we have seen the price of raw materials go down, and our budget has been extremely affected, because as we are still very dependent on oil export revenues, we have not been able to implement the budget as the we set at the end of 2019".
Savings, he stressed, had to be used, "but even using savings, on the other hand, we had to spend a lot to prevent the virus from spreading and we did it in a context where, despite the low oil price , as members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, we had to respect the reduction of quotas ".
For the Minister of Finance, the use of debt issuance in international markets has become impossible, which has forced the country to postpone an issue of 3 billion dollars that was expected for the first half of this year.
"Because of all the worry about debt, the ability to go to the markets has become impossible, it was a very challenging moment, and a moment that we are still going through," concluded Vera Daves.
