By CentralBankNews.info
Angola’s central bank maintained its policy rate, the BNA rate, at 9.25 percent, and the rate on its Standing Lending Facility Liquidity at 10.25 percent, but raised the Liquidity Absorption rate by 50 basis points to 1.25 percent from 0.75 percent.
The National Bank of Angola (BNA), which last month maintained its BNA rate but cut the reserve requirement on local currency deposits to 12.5 percent from 15.0 percent, did not provide any reason for the increased liquidity absorption rate apart from saying its monetary policy committee had based the decision on an analysis on the country’s economy based on January data.
In January Angola’s inflation rate rose to 7.84 percent from 7.69 percent in December, but it was still well below the 10 percent that the central bank has long targeted. The last time Angola’s inflation rate topped 10 percent was in July 2012 at 10.02 percent and since then inflation has trended lower.
The central bank, which cut its rates by 100 basis points in 2013, said the LUIBOR overnight rate was at 4.15 percent while maturities of 3 and 12 months were 7.49 percent and 9.42 percent, respectively.
Credit to the country’s economy grew by 1.62 percent in January to a stock of 2,975,840 million kwanza, with the national currency component up by 2.4 percent and the foreign currency component up by 0.28 percent.
The central bank said the kwanza’s exchange rate was stable in January, with an average exchange rate of 97.86 against the U.S. dollar. A total of US$ 3.031 billion was traded in the foreign exchange market, of which $1.636 billion was traded in the primary market and the rest in the secondary.
In 2013 the kwanza depreciated by only 1.8 percent against the dollar and has remained stable so far this year, trading at 97.60 to the dollar today compared with 97.61 at the end of 2013.
Angola’s Gross Domestic Product rose by 7.4 percent in 2013, up from 2012’s 5.2 percent growth.
