{"id":130272,"date":"2018-07-17T16:11:10","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T20:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.countingpips.com\/?p=130272"},"modified":"2018-07-17T16:11:10","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T20:11:10","slug":"angola-cuts-rate-150-bps-as-inflation-continues-to-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2018\/07\/angola-cuts-rate-150-bps-as-inflation-continues-to-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Angola cuts rate 150 bps as inflation continues to fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"inves-2136158898\" class=\"inves-below-title-posts inves-entity-placement\"><div id =\"posts_date_custom\"><div align=\"left\">July 17, 2018<\/div><hr style=\"border: none; border-bottom: 3px solid black;\">\r\n<\/div><\/div><p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Angola&#8217;s central bank lowered its benchmark BNA rate by 150 basis points to 16.50 percent and cut the ratio on mandatory reserves in kwanza by a further 100 points to 18 percent, citing a fall in inflation for the eight consecutive month and expectations that inflation would be lower than forecast.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Today&#8217;s easing follows the National Bank of Angola&#8217;s (BNA) decision in May to unify the rate on its marginal lending facility with that of its basic interest, the BNA rate, and a 200 basis point cut in the ratio on mandatory reserves.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Angola&#8217;s inflation rate fell to 19.52 percent in June from 26.25 in October last year while the monetary base, the operational variable of monetary policy since last November, contracted by 7.75 percent in June and by 4.58 percent year-on-year.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The BNA has forecast inflation of 23 percent this year and now expects the rate to be lower.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;BNA said gross international reserves in June had declined to US$17.50 billion in June from $18.98 billion in May and $18.06 billion in December 2017, equivalent to 7.3 months of imports.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;As part of major overhaul of its policy operations following the arrival of Jose Massano as BNA governor in October last year, the central bank in January replaced its fixed exchange rate regime with a floating regime with bands and set the reference rate for the kwanza via auctions.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Since Jan. 9 the kwanza has depreciated steadily and was trading at 253.6 to the U.S. dollar today, down 34.5 percent since the currency began to float.<br \/><a name='more'><\/a><br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; <br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The National Bank of Angola issued the following statement:<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 9px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">&#8220;The Monetary Policy Committee of the National Bank of Angola (CPM) met today, July 17, 2018, and decided to reduce the BNA Rate from 18% to 16.5%.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The CPM also decided to maintain the interest rate of the Liquidity Absorption Permanent Facility unchanged and to reduce the ratio of Mandatory Reserves to deposits of the private sector, Central Government and Local Governments in national currency to 17%.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"X-section\" style=\"background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333;\">\n<h4 style=\"box-sizing: border-box; color: #9a7d3f; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.42857; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-top: 30px;\"><\/h4>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">These decisions were made possible by the reduction of the annual national inflation rate for the eighth consecutive month, as well as the projections for the latter to be below the forecast for the year (23%).&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">In addition, a trend is expected for the reduction of the interest rates of credit in the economy.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The IPCN (National Consumer Price Index), which includes all provinces, registered a monthly variation of 1.26% in June, lower than in the previous month (-0.01 pp) and a year-on-year change of 19 , 52% in the last 12 months (-0.32 pp).&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The provinces with the highest monthly variations were: Malanje (2.63%), Bengo (2.38%) and Moxico (1.92%), with provinces of Lunda Sul (0.77%), Namibe , 86%) and Cuando Cubango (0.86%) recorded the smallest variations.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">With regard to the general panorama of the IPCN by classes, it was verified that the highest monthly price variation was observed in the Clothing and Footwear class (1.99%).<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The Monetary Base in National Currency, the operational variable of monetary policy, contracted 7.75% in June 2018 and 4.58% in year-on-year terms compared to June 2017. &nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">In the interbank money market, in June 2018, there was a reduction of 9.49% in the amounts traded, totaling a flow of KZ 752.64 billion.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">LUIBOR, at&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><em style=\"box-sizing: border-box;\">overnight<\/em><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">&nbsp;maturity&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">, stood at 21.27%, which represents an increase compared to its level at the beginning of the year (17.77%).<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The monetary aggregate M2, which brings together all the bank deposits in national currency and the notes and coins held by the public, reduced during the month of June in Kz 58.55 billion.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">In fact, it increased from Kz 4,499.73 billion in May to K 4,441.18 billion in June 2018, corresponding to a decrease of 1.30%.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">In the last 12 months, this indicator varied positively by 1.88%.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">In the credit market, there was a monthly expansion of 3.55% in National Currency Credit.<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">In the period under review, the National Bank of Angola sold a total of 1,389.91 million euros to commercial banks, with a cumulative sale of \u20ac 5,749.99 million this year.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">This amount is lower than the amount sold to commercial banks in the same period last year at 9.76%.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">It is also worth noting the conclusion of most of the foreign exchange operations pending in the banking system at 31 December 2017, with the exception of regularization situations according to a schedule agreed with the local entities involved.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The fall in exports to a greater extent than that of imports resulted in a balance of the goods account in the amount of USD 2.19 billion in June, lower than in May (USD 2.73 billion).<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 9px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">Gross International Reserves (IBR) in June 2018 stood at USD 17.50 billion against USD 18.98 billion in May 2018 and USD 18.06 billion in December 2017. end of the month under analysis, the level of international reserves represented 7.29 months of coverage of imports of goods and services.<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 9px;\">\n<div style=\"font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">The next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the National Bank of Angola will be held on September&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"box-sizing: border-box;\">24, 2018<\/strong><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\">&nbsp;.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: 13px;\"><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;\"><span style=\"font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot;; font-size: x-small;\">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <\/span><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Angola&#8217;s central bank lowered its benchmark BNA rate by 150 basis points to 16.50 percent and cut the ratio on mandatory reserves in kwanza by a further 100 points to 18 percent, citing a fall in inflation for the eight consecutive month and expectations that inflation would be lower than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130273,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130272\/revisions\/130273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}