BNA says there is no shortage of foreign exchange and that the foreign exchange market is normalized

José de Lima Massano's statements were made at a press conference in Luanda, at the end of the meeting of the central bank's monetary policy committee (CPM).

"We are not aware of outstanding foreign exchange operations due to difficulty in accessing foreign exchange, we consider the foreign exchange market to be normalized," said the head of the BNA.

In the foreign exchange domain, in August, the kwanza appreciated around 0.65 percent against the dollar, raising the accumulated appreciation since the beginning of the year to 2.15 percent.

In the informal market, the accumulated appreciation in the same period was 12.44 percent, which resulted in a differential between the formal and informal rate of 5.30 percent.

According to Lima Massano, delays in foreign exchange transactions that raise complaints from some bank customers are not caused by currency problems, but by operational inefficiency.

"There is no shortage of foreign exchange. We have a functioning, normalized exchange market", he insisted, stressing that the market "has found its balance".

The governor of the BNA added that 130 million dollars were acquired in September, the month in which there was a strong appreciation of the kwanza, "and the commercial banks did not feel the need to make this purchase".

Lima Massano stressed that the BNA has been focused on managing international reserves: "We have up-to-date operations and growing reserves, it is natural that there is an appreciation of the exchange rate," he said, rejecting that this is artificial.

Notwithstanding the drop in exported quantities of oil, the balance of payments current account balance remained in surplus in the second quarter, according to the CPM. According to preliminary data, the current account balance was US$1,724.52 million, against US$1,974.58 million in the previous quarter.

The performance of the external accounts, including the attribution of Special Drawing Rights of around 1.007 million dollars, allowed an accumulation of international reserves in the order of 1,851.85 million dollars, until the month of August.

The stock of Gross International Reserves stood at US$16.73 billion in August, covering 12.63 months of imports of goods and services.

Net International Reserves stood at 9.90 billion dollars.

The Monetary Base in national currency, operational variable of monetary policy and monetary aggregates (M2) in national currency, intermediate variable of monetary policy, contracted until August by 12.68 percent and 4.61 percent, respectively.