The Angolan government expects to close this year with a public debt to GDP ratio of 61%, highlighting the fall in this indicator, which in 2020 "was above 130% and at 80% in 2021".

"As I speak, we have a debt to GDP ratio of less than 70%. We are in fact seeing a downward trend and we hope to close the year at 61%, and our vision is that it can't be more than 60%, because the more GDP grows, the lower this ratio becomes," said the Angolan Secretary of State for Finance and Treasury yesterday.

Ottoniel dos Santos, who was speaking at the closing ceremony of the IMF's Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook Report, said that Angola's positive prospects in the region were the result of a "rigorous and very tough" process.

"This has led us to be able to have signs that are positively inclined both upwards and downwards, generating a better outlook for our economy than that presented by most of sub-Saharan Africa," he pointed out.

According to the Angolan leader, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) assistance programs for Angola, which acted as a "personal trainer", also contributed to the country's current positive indicators.

"What we want now is to stimulate the investment variable and this variable is based on the diversification of the economy, the participation of the private sector to allow the product to grow in a sustainable way," said the Angolan Secretary of State.

The IMF Angola representative, Marcos Souto, who presented the report, said at the time that the fall in Angola's debt to GDP ratio was "largely due to the dynamics of the exchange rate".

"More than 80% of the public debt is in foreign currency, but there is also an effort here to reduce the public debt and also the composition," he stressed.

The Angolan authorities estimated an inflation rate of 15% at the end of 2022, while the IMF pointed to a rate of 18%, mainly due to the country's "flexible exchange rate regime." (Lusa