Luanda, April 2, 2025 (Lusa) - Angola's minister of state for economic coordination said on Wednesday that the state budget was receiving US$200 million (€179.1 million) each month to support the treasury, as a result of the debt agreement with China.
José de Lima Massano said that at the moment Angola had free balances of US$200 million every month, recalling that this was the result of an agreement reached with China in March last year, during a visit by the Angolan president, João Lourenço, to that Asian country.
Speaking to the press at the time, José de Lima Massano said that the timetable for the payment of the US$17 billion debt (around €15.66 billion at the current exchange rate) to China had not been changed, but the instalments, of which part was used to constitute a guarantee reserve, had been lowered "making it possible to release, on average, around US$150/200 million per month".
Today, as a guest at the 2nd edition of ‘Conversas Economia 100 Makas’, which was on the theme of ‘Where is the Angolan Economy and where is it going’, the Angolan minister said that the time had come to renew this facility.
"We now have free balances of US$200 million on average each month. And this is what has allowed us to service our debt with relative security and, also, the operators of the financial system know that we get to the end of each month and we always have some currency that we sell to the system, which comes from the agreement we made with China," he emphasised.
The Angolan minister said that in the month after the agreement was reached, Angola had a cash inflow of US$600 million (€537.4 million), a figure that was "very opportune at the same moment" as a foreign debt of the same magnitude was coming due.
"It was a matter of taking the €600 (million) and cleaning it up," said the minister, reiterating that every month, as a result of the arrangement, around US$200 million in free balances help finance the current year's state budget.
The minister of state for economic coordination emphasised that funding for projects is being taken care of, stressing that the growth in investment spending in this year's state budget was deliberate, in order to "take advantage" of existing funding lines that the country is not making effective use of.
"Because although we have the financial availability to finance projects in particular, we don't always have the budget space to carry out this expenditure," said the minister, indicating that failing to use these lines of financing also brings costs to the state, with the payment of fees and commissions.
José de Lima Massano said that "the difficulties that are occurring in mobilising resources are essentially to support the treasury", hence the importance of withdrawing subsidies on fuel, energy and water.
The volume of public investment at the moment, for more than 1,400 public projects, some of which are large-scale and impactful - "more water, more energy, more health, more education" - is basically the financial envelope foreseen in the 2025 budget for the fuel subsidy, the minister emphasised.
According to the minister, the expenditure that is financed with ordinary treasury resources, which essentially derive from tax revenues, "is not enough" to fulfil the set of intentions in the budget.
"With regard to public investment, there is a solution for the 1,400 projects, there are still some projects in the pipeline that we don't have guaranteed funding for, but which are critical and we must continue to look for a solution to carry them out, but the big issue in fact is the treasury to support that expenditure that is not associated with funding," he emphasised.
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