A motorbike is parked at a Sonangol fuel station in Luanda, Angola, August 24, 2022. REUTERS
WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) – Angola is seeking a budget support loan from the African Development Bank, its finance minister told Reuters, as the government pushes ahead to shield vulnerable citizens from the Middle East war’s fallout and manage debt costs.
The country is in talks with the AfDB for $165 million and is considering tapping bilateral lending and international markets for the remaining roughly $1 billion in external financing Angola is targeting this year.
“This is a work in progress,” Finance Minister Vera Daves de Sousa told Reuters of the AfDB loan on the sidelines of the IMF World Bank spring meetings in Washington.
The loan, she said, would require policy measures that Angola is still working to implement before it can go to the AfDB board for approval, though she did not give an indication of when this would happen.
The West African oil producing nation will get a windfall from higher oil prices due to the war. While its 2026 budget used a reference oil price of $61, Brent crude is currently trading at just under $100 per barrel.
Reporting by Libby George, editing by Karin Strohecker
