On Wednesday, business associations from the agriculture, industry and fisheries sectors expressed their concern about the devaluation of the national currency, the kwanza, foreseeing a worsening of inflation.

The president of the Angolan Agricultural Association (AAPA), Wanderley Ribeiro, told Lusa that the issue is a concern for the business community, made worse by the fact that almost all inputs are imported, "from knowledge to seeds".

Wanderley Ribeiro stressed that "they are now going to start arriving in the country at a very high price, which is going to make the cost of production even higher. We already have a very high production structure and cost, without having these exchange rate phenomena that we are experiencing now."

In addition to the import of inputs, Wanderley Ribeiro expressed concern about the payment of salaries, especially on large farms.

"We have a statistic that the 30 largest farms in the country are being run by approximately 90% expatriates and then there's a cash flow problem to pay these salaries and all this will have to be paid by the end consumer, it will have to be built into the price of the product, so we're expecting inflation to rise as a result of the increase in the cost of production," he said.

On the other hand, this situation stimulates domestic demand from the big importers, but the product needs to be available.

"And what we've been feeling, above all because the macro programs defined by the government, Planagrão and others, which would help the sector to leverage itself, so that by the end of this year, the beginning of next year, it would be able to have a greater availability of products, so far we don't know about the availability of these resources, so companies aren't being able to finance themselves either, to be able to move forward with their production," he said.

The president of the AAPA already foresees an increase in inflation and, in order to deal with the situation, "a remedy that doesn't have an immediate effect": an increase in domestic production.

For his part, the vice-president of the Angolan Industrial Association said that companies are feeling the effects of the rise in import prices, which ultimately affects both companies and consumers.

Eliseu Gaspar believes that there are a number of measures to be taken to reverse the situation, firstly an increase in domestic production, followed by diversification of the economy, "which is not just rhetoric, but a fact".

"Another structural measure that has been proposed in recent days by various representatives of the Angolan business community is that the oil companies should pay in foreign currency here, because what we see now is that the companies pay in kwanzas and they only transfer the foreign exchange corresponding to the kwanzas of the expenses and the rest of the amount stays outside the country, the Angolan banks and the Angolan market don't benefit from the sale of oil, what they benefit from is a residual amount paid in kwanzas for their expenses," he said.

Manuel Azevedo, leader of the Luanda Artisanal, Semi-Industrial and Industrial Fishing Association (Apasil), said that "the dollar goes up and everything goes up".

"We live off imports, everything used in fishing is imported, for the boat, the only thing we don't order from abroad is nails, straps and wood, everything else comes from abroad, so with the high exchange rate we have to adjust, we never increase the price, we adjust," he said.

Manuel Azevedo stressed that adjustments had to be made because the population's purchasing power had fallen, agreeing with his colleagues that the devaluation had to be halted with national production.

According to the official exchange rate of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), the kwanza, which has been depreciating for several weeks, fell last week by 12% in just one week, standing today at 755 kwanzas per dollar and 825 kwanzas per euro.