Angola’s finance minister Vera Daves said on Friday that the debt relief initiatives negotiated at the G20 should result in savings of $6 billion (€5 billion) by 2023.
Vera Daves was speaking today at a press conference in Luanda, two days after the announcement of the third review of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing programme where an additional $1 billion (€845 million) was approved.
Daves said that these “are concrete monetary benefits” to which the government wants to make good use of and show that the Angolan public debt, “despite being subject to great pressure, remains sustainable” and brings “tranquility in the medium and long term.
Daves thanked the “movement” of international creditors who showed solidarity with the Angolan government due to this pressure.
“Our multilateral partners and the largest bilateral creditors, observing all this pressure and all these consequences of the pandemic and all the impact that the pandemic is having on the Angolan public accounts promptly showed solidarity,” she said, which will translate into “concrete savings.
“Of course [these savings] excite us, but we can’t get too euphoric because the public accounts situation remains delicate,” Vera Daves said, adding that the public debt stock should reach 123% by the end of the year.
With the funds approved, the Angolan government expects to “not only continue to honour debt service but to have more money to fight” the Covid-19 pandemic, she noted.
The IMF decision, announced on Wednesday, brings the total financial assistance program for Angola to almost US$4.5 billion (3.8 billion euros).
