"For 2022, it is certain that we want to go to the markets," said the finance minister during a meeting with journalists this morning in Luanda, in which she also pointed out the possibility of issuing debt this year if there are positive conditions.
"For 2022, regardless of the issue of active debt in our portfolio, we want to issue a new issue to the market and we are preparing the indebtedness plan for 2022 with this in perspective", stressed the government official.
Angola's last debt issue was made at the end of 2019, and since then the country has been withdrawn from the financial markets, not only because of the high interest rates demanded by investors in a pandemic context, but also because of the financial support that the Fund International Monetary and other partners have given the country.
At the meeting with the media, Vera Daves de Sousa explained that the Government has a conservative posture regarding the debt, being proactively managing cheaper financing that can make the volume of debt progressively decrease.
The debt-to-GDP ratio has risen significantly in recent years, not so much because of the issuance of new debt, but because of the devaluation of the kwanza and the effective reduction in GDP, given the recession over the last five years, which is expected to continue this year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) worsened its growth forecast for Angola in its latest report on sub-Saharan Africa, released in October, and now anticipates a 0.7 percent recession, the sixth consecutive annual fall in the country's wealth, which is expected to grow 2.4 percent in 2022.
Public debt, in turn, will continue this year above 100 percent of GDP, down from 136.5 percent last year to 103.7 percent this year and 90.8 percent in 2022. which contrasts with the Government's forecast of 85 percent for this year.
The 2022 State Budget proposal was approved in general on 9 November and will now be discussed in detail.
