Angola among Africa's best performing economies

The document, issued by Angola's National Customs Board (DNA) showed that Angola placed second in the terms of annual economic growth, at 17.6%, surpassed only by Mauritania, which registered annual growth of 19.4% in 2006.

In southern Africa, Angola is at the top, followed by Mozambique (7%), Malawi (6.9%) and Zambia (6%). At the bottom, Zimbabwe had negative growth of 4.4% in 2006, compared with minus 7.1% in 2005.

Through its Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), SA aims to achieve an economic growth rate of 6% per annum by 2010. The country also aims to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014, using AsgiSA.

The Gross Domestic Product growth for the first quarter of 2007 came in at 4.7% for South Africa, according to figures from Statistics SA.

With regard to financial management, Angola is among the three best African countries. The national currency (Kwanza) had an appreciation of 8.5% relative to the United States dollar in 2006.

The Zambian Kwacha and Sudanese Dinar recorded an appreciation of 23% and 12.5%, respectively while the Zimbabwe dollar suffered a depreciation of 87% and an inflation rate of 1,216%.

Angola's economic stability is not only the result of the increase of oil revenues, but also because of inflows of foreign direct investment, a sustainable monetary policy and a macro-economic management adjusted to the current moment, the report said.

Article published courtesy of BuaNews