Transactions on the Angolan capital market until August reached 907.33 billion kwanzas (2.2 billion euros), of which around a third were traded last month, announced an official from the Capital Market Commission.

According to Johny Soki, director of the studies and strategy office of the Capital Market Commission, the figure was influenced by the more than 300 billion kwanzas traded in August, a record in terms of trading volume that had to do with "the debt softening policy" put in place by the Ministry of Finance.

"The goal is to replace exchange rate-indexed instruments and others with short maturities with others with longer maturities to even out the debt profile," Soki explained on the sidelines of a meeting sponsored by the Capital Market Commission.

The transactions were made between the Public Debt Management Unit represented by the National Bank of Angola (BNA) and market players and registered on the Angolan Debt and Securities Exchange (Bodiva), so the impact was reflected in the negotiated volume, he said.

In 2021, the volume traded in Bodiva was around 800 billion kwanzas (1.9 billion euros).

Questioned about the reasons why Angolan companies still don't resort to the capital market as a source of financing, opting mostly for banking, he considered that it is essentially due to the fact that they still have little information.

"Companies and investors are now discovering the capital market, that this segment exists, so we are having a gradual growth," said Johny Soki, adding that companies now have more instruments to finance themselves, such as issuing shares and bonds.

"These are the vehicles that companies turn to when they want to receive financing from lenders," he pointed out.

"Today it is already functional, we already have a company that went to get money via the stock exchange (Banco Angolano de Investimento), with success, we have a process underway (Banco Caixa Geral Angola) and we have a project to leverage issuers to capture more companies" said Soki quoted by Lusa, admitting that by the end of the year more companies will be financed this way.