LUANDA, Nov 9 - Angola will push ahead with removing all fuel subsidies by the end of 2025, which should enable state oil company Sonangol to pay taxes and dividends again, the country's finance minister Vera Daves de Sousa said.
"We are taking out the fuel subsidies... End of 2025, we expect to see this process stabilise and closed as much as possible," she said in a virtual interview from the capital Luanda, ahead of the Reuters NEXT conference in New York on Thursday.Sonangol imports refined petroleum products to the southern African OPEC member which it sells locally at a lower price with the government meant to reimburse the difference.
The plans are part of President Joao Lourenco's reform efforts to modernise the economy and attract private investment. Daves de Sousa told Reuters NEXT that other privatisation processes were ongoing. On a Bloomberg report that the central bank was restricting foreign currency trading to stop the kwanza from weakening, Daves de Sousa said the bank was"avoiding intervention as a way of also protecting our international reserves".