Angola plans to issue a Eurobond and renegotiate bilateral debt in 2018 as part of measures aimed at restructuring the economy and controlling mounting debt payments, a government macroeconomic plan seen by Reuters showed.
President João Lourenço took power in September and is seeking to win credibility with international investors and shed Angola’s image as an opaque oil economy with rampant corruption. The government earlier put the Eurobond’s size at $2 billion.
The 70-page “Macroeconomic Stabilization Plan” said Angola will prioritize repaying invoices dating to 2014 and totalling more than 1 trillion kwanza ($4.9 billion) owed to companies.
It also showed that total debt for sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy reached 12.5 trillion kwanza in 2017, up from 5.9 trillion kwanza in 2014.
“The trajectory of the debt is, at this moment, passing the limit of sustainability,” the document says. “All the effort needed to keep it sustainable must be made,” it said.
An oil boom made Angola one of Africa’s richest countries per capita but it is also one of the world’s most unequal. The economy fell into recession in 2016 and unemployment is at least 25 percent.
Source: KITCO
