Luanda – The Economic Commission of the Council of Ministers on Tuesday approved a plan to improve the business environment in the country.
According to the press release issued at the end of the session, the document containing a list of key activities, to be carried out until April 2022, aims to improve Angola’s position in the Doing Business ranking, published by the World Bank.
The note issued at session, led by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, said that the project was included in the framework of the Programme to Support Production, Export Diversification and Import Substitution (PRODESI).
General State Budget
The economic team approved the diploma that defines the principles, rules and procedures to be observed in the process of preparation and elaboration of the State Budget proposal for the 2022 economic year.
The project also defines the medium term expenditure 2023-25, providing the organs of the budget system with instructions for the preparation of medium term expenditure estimates for the period 2023-2025.
Within the scope of this diploma, the drafting process of the State Budget 2022 and of the medium term expenditure framework 2023-25 will continue the efforts to increase the participation of the State’s social partners, with emphasis on the holding of meetings of the municipal and provincial councils for community auscultation and of the National Council for Social Concertation, during the drafting of the budget proposal, through the organs of the State’s local administration budget system, reinforcing the premise of a more participatory budget.
Law of the Tax Benefits Code
The Economic Commission appraised the Proposal of Law that approves the code of fiscal benefits, a legal instrument that contains a structured set of rules and principles that must be obeyed by the creation and concession of fiscal benefits and that allow for their better control and monitoring.
The session was made aware of the annual report and accounts of the National Bank of Angola (BNA) for 2020, a document that reports on activities carried out during this period, with emphasis on the performance of the Angolan banking and non-banking systems, corporate governance and internal control system of financial institutions, the payment system, monetary policy and liquidity management.
The document also reports on activities linked to monetary aggregates and the balance of payments, as well as the impacts of market operations on the monetary base and monetary aggregates.
In the 2020 period, gross international reserves declined by 13.55 percent, corresponding to a coverage of 11.81 months of imports of goods and services.
New airport project
The Economic Commission was informed of the status of the project to build the new Luanda International Airport, a document that provides a contextualisation of the project and its construction work, projecting the concrete actions for its relaunch and continuity, as well as the respective execution schedule.
Fertiliser subsidy
The policy measures for reducing the fertiliser retail price for the 2021 agricultural season were also briefed to the members of the economic team.
The said document presents the measures adopted by the Government, which aim to safeguard the achievements already attained in the sector, allowing fertilisers for this agricultural year to be provided in the most competitive and affordable quantities and prices for farmers.
Thus, for this year, considering that fertilizers belong to the free price regime, in which the price is fixed based on the relationship between supply and demand, the Government will grant, among other incentives, a subsidy of 35 percent of the retail price of NPK-12-24-12 compound fertilizers, Ammonium Sulphate and Urea.
Source: Angola Press News Agency