The analyst at Standard & Poor's (S&P), the rating agency that follows Angola, told Lusa on Sunday that the government's implementation of structural reforms was crucial to improving the country's rating.

"The reforms aspect was key to the improvement in the rating," Zahabia Gupta said in an interview with Lusa news agency, the week after S&P upgraded its opinion on Angola's sovereign credit quality from CCC+ to B-.

"The government was very committed to the reform program, they had a program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and we saw the government implementing very difficult reforms; the immediate impact was very hard for them, because inflation went up to double digits in several years, and poverty is very high in the country, the population felt some pain, but on the budget side they were very committed to cutting spending and increasing the tax base, and they are seeing the results of that," the analyst told Lusa.

Asked about Luanda's ability to maintain the pace of reforms in an election year, Zahabia Gupta admitted that election years are always more difficult, both in terms of reform measures and in terms of maintaining balanced public accounts, but pointed out that these 'dangers' are already incorporated into the forecasts.

"There are several risks in the reforms; one is that the IMF program is over, and it served as a political anchor, we will have to see commitment to reforms without the IMF this year; the second risk is that there are elections, and that creates pressure for additional spending, we see a united front in the opposition, with sporadic protests over the economy, there is a possibility that the government will spend more to appease the population, but that is built into our forecasts, that is, we foresee some slippage, but overall we expect reforms to continue to diversify revenue sources and the economy," the analyst replied.

About the possibility of Angola negotiating another financial adjustment program with the IMF, after the 4.5 billion dollars received in the last three years, Zahabia Gupta says that this is not likely.

"The government has not asked for another program, in terms of financing needs the authorities feel that they don't need more funds, they have sufficient budget cushions in foreign reserves and oil prices are at $90 per barrel, even though our estimate is $75 per barrel for the year as a whole, but at this level they feel they don't need more funding," the analyst said.

Still, he admitted that "the government may choose to adopt an unfunded IMF program that serves as a policy anchor and boosts investor confidence."

Meanwhile, Angola plans to return to international debt markets as early as this quarter, issuing an indicative $2.8 billion, according to the debt plan published this month.