Angola Forecasts Economic Growth of 7.6% in 2011 And a Budget Surplus
Angola, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, is expected to achieve an economic-growth rate of 7.6 percent next year, boosted by an expanding non-oil industry, Finance Minister Carlos Alberto Lopes said.
Oil production, which ranks second on the continent to output in Nigeria, is forecast at 1.9 million barrels per day, Lopes told lawmakers in his annual budget presentation today in Luanda, the capital. The budget is based on a “conservative” estimate that oil will trade at $68 per barrel, he said.
“This budget was set in an environment of recovery from the effects of the global financial crisis,” he said.
Spending in the year ahead will total 3.39 trillion kwanza ($36.8 billion) and revenue is forecast at 3.23 trillion kwanza, leaving a budget surplus of 164 billion kwanza, or 1.9 percent of gross domestic product, Lopes said.
Angola is rebuilding after a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. The International Monetary Fund said last month that economic growth is expected to accelerate in 2011 from 2.5 percent this year as the effects of production problems in the oil industry and “fiscal retrenchment” unwind.
On Oct. 15, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos forecast economic growth at 4.5 percent this year and 8 percent in 2011. Angola’s oil industry is expected to expand 2.3 percent next year, with non-oil growth forecast at 11 percent, Lopes said today.
Inflation
Inflation in the year ahead is expected to be 12 percent, Lopes said. The forecast compares with an estimate of less than 10 percent predicted in the government’s 10 budget. The annual inflation rate climbed to 16 percent in October from 15.7 percent a month earlier, driven by higher public-transport costs.
Angola will spend $989 million settling foreign debt and 904 billion kwanza repaying domestic debt, Lopes said.
The government has paid $2.7 billion of $6.8 billion in debt owed to Portuguese and Brazilian construction companies, Dos Santos said last month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Candido Mendes in Luanda at cmendes6@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
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