"We bring a proposal for a surplus OGE, that is, with a positive overall balance of 0.9 percent, with this we are continuing the path started in 2018 with budget balances without a deficit", said the Minister of State for Economic Coordination.
Manuel Nunes Júnior, who was speaking at the seat of parliament, where he delivered the 2023 State Budget proposal, which estimates revenues and sets expenditures of 20.1 billion kwanzas, said that the instrument should maintain the country's economic growth trajectory.
The 2023 OGE proposal will fundamentally fulfill two objectives, namely the "continuation of the country's economic growth and the continuation of prudent budgetary management".
"We are going to continue the fiscal consolidation process underway in the country," he assured, noting that the authorities forecast a positive budget balance of around 2.7 percent for 2022.
For Nunes Júnior, not having deficit budget balances "is very important for an economy", because the country now has less need to incur debt processes.
"When expenses are higher than revenues, we have to borrow to cover the difference, so the ratio of public debt to GDP [Gross Domestic Product] has been decreasing, projections point out that by the end of this year this ratio is 56.1 percent, after being at 128.7 percent in 2020", he maintained.
"We are going to continue this trajectory of reducing the public debt, because with the reduction of inflation these two factors, that is the reduction of the public debt and of inflation, are very important to reduce the interest rates that are still relatively high in our market", he stressed.
The OGE 2023 proposal was prepared with a weighted average price of a barrel of oil at 75 dollars, an average oil production of 1.18 million barrels of oil/day with the social sector absorbing a weight on the total budget expenditure of 23.9 percent.
Regarding the continuation of the country's economic growth, the minister considered it essential to be able to "solve employment problems", that is to say "reduce the high unemployment rates" still registered.
"Hence we need to maintain the path of economic growth that we restarted in 2021", he stressed.
The Minister of State also noted that the OGE 2023 proposal provides for resources for the three main programs to promote domestic production, namely the Promotion of Grain Production (Planagrão), the Promotion of Livestock Production and the Promotion of Fisheries.
Asked about the growth of the Angolan economy 'versus' population growth in 2023, Nunes Júnior recalled that the expected growth rate for 2023 is 3.3 percent higher than the annual population growth rate of 3 percent.
"It means that our growth rate is slightly above the population growth rate, which is already an important fact (...). But, the most important thing is to highlight the fact that the non-oil sector, which is what more jobs it creates, it will also have a growth above the population growth of around 3.4 percent", he concluded.
Manuel Nunes Júnior headed the Government's economic team that delivered the 2023 State Budget proposal to the President of the National Assembly, Carolina Cerqueira, last week.
The budget proposal should be discussed and voted on in general in the next few days.
