Africa-Press – Angola. The National Bank of Angola (BNA) has decided to change the exchange rate after it had been stagnant for five months since reaching the barrier of 912.0 Kwanzas per dollar in December last year. This Wednesday, one dollar was worth 911.955 Kz, which means that the kwanza appreciated by just 0.005% against the dollar.
The kwanza is appreciating in a context in which the dollar is once again appreciating on international markets and the price of Brent oil is being quoted at around 60 USD/barrel. This scenario raises questions once again about the BNA’s interventions in the foreign exchange market, after reviving a kind of fixed exchange rate regime, since in a free market this stagnation of the exchange rate is not seen as normal in the foreign exchange market.
Still, despite this slight appreciation, the kwanza is practically at a standstill. The national currency only traded above 912.0 Kz on 21 and 22 December when it reached 918.0 Kz per dollar, and then fell to 912.0 the following day.
Although over the months the BNA governor has stressed that the central bank has not interfered in this matter, several banking sources contradict this, saying that the banking supervisor “has an invisible hand that ends up pressuring banks not to make offers that it considers “speculative”, which has prevented the depreciation of the national currency.
Unlike the US dollar, the exchange rate of the kwanza against the euro has fluctuated over the past few months. Since the beginning of the year, the national currency has depreciated 10% against the euro, falling from 942.7 Kz for each 1 euro note to 1,045.4 Kz this Wednesday (7 May). This is because the European Union currency has been more volatile against the dollar on international markets and the exchange rate in Angola is defined by its relationship with the dollar.
However, this scenario is not new. The national currency has already been stagnant for seven months at the 820 Kz barrier, between June 2023 and February 2024, after an abrupt depreciation of 39% in 2023. The plunge began on May 12, 2023 and only slowed down from June 28 of the same year, in what was a “hellish” month and a half for the country.
Thus, similar to what happened in 2023, after reaching historic lows, when the exchange rate reached 951.6 Kz per dollar, on October 1, 2024, the kwanza thus stagnates again.
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