Angola’s Secretary of State for Planning said on Monday that the country’s economy is expected to grow by around 3% in the second quarter of this year, emphasising the need for consistency in its production levels.
Luís Epalanga, who was speaking at a press conference on the evolution of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2024, pointed out that data on the performance of the non-oil sector, namely agriculture, fishing, diamonds and industry, in the second quarter of this year, is being finalised.
“When we have these more accurate figures we will be able to have more concrete data (…), but it is close to 3% in the second quarter,” he said.
According to INE data, the Angolan economy grew by 4.6% in the first quarter of the year, the biggest increase since the first quarter of 2015.
According to Luís Epalanga, since May, there has been a positive impact on the trajectory of inflation, especially from the productive sector, especially agriculture.
“Inflation in February stood at 2.58%, then went up to 2.54%, we had a peak of 2.61% again, due to the adjustment in transport prices, and it stabilised last month at around 2.41%, and our forecast for June is that it will be very close to two or much lower than that,” he stressed.
The Angolan government official stressed that if the “production levels that are reflected in GDP are maintained in a sustained manner” and sequential positive growth, “the general price level will certainly stabilise or at least have a downward trend”.
“The fundamental thing was to focus on maintaining production levels so that it then has an impact on the availability of goods and has an impact on the price level of widely consumed goods,” he emphasised.
Luís Epalanga emphasised that if the country continues to see positive growth rates, as has been the case since the third quarter of 2023, it will generate income for families and contribute to lower unemployment levels.
The Rapid Information Sheet (FIR) for the National Accounts for the first quarter of 2024, compared to the previous quarter, indicates that GDP grew by 2.1%, considering the seasonally adjusted series, with positive performances from construction, transport and storage, as well as the oil and natural gas sector, which is the most prominent.
GDP in the first quarter of this year totalled 18,327,957 million kwanzas (around €19 billion), of which 180,473 million kwanzas (€195 million) were due to product taxes, net of subsidies.
According to INE, the activities that contributed most to economic activity’s performance in this period were the extraction and refining of crude oil and natural gas, with 30.4%, and trade (26.8%).
Lusa
