This is from Reuters:

Angola’s central bank devalued the kwanza currency by about 6 percent against the dollar, a statement showed, a move analysts said was aimed at stimulating foreign currency inflows eroded by falling global oil prices.

 According to the bank’s latest update on the official exchange rate, issued late on Thursday, one U.S. dollar will now cost 116-117 kwanza, compared with 109-111 before.

The exchange rate is however much higher at 185-195 on a thriving informal market.

Plunging oil prices have hit Africa’s second largest crude exporter, forcing the central bank to restrict dollar sales as foreign exchange supplies dried up.

Analysts said the official devaluation would not be sufficient to shore up Angola’s foreign reserves.

I have long argued that Angola’s central bank would be forced to devalue it’s currency in response to the combination of falling oil prices and slowing Chinese growth – oil is Angola’s main export and China is both the biggest investor into Angola and the biggest importer of Angolan goods (oil).

This is what I wrote two years ago:

Hence Angola de facto operates a pegged exchange rate regime and it is pretty clear in my view that this regime is likely to exacerbate the negative impact from the ‘China shock’.

The China shock is likely to lead to depreciation pressures on the Angolan kwanza in two ways. First the drop in global oil prices is likely to push down Angolan export prices – more or less by a one-to-one ratio. Second, the expected drop in Chinese investment activity is likely to also reduce Chinese direct investments into Angola. The depreciation pressures could potentially become very significant. However, if the Angolan central bank tries to maintain a quasi-pegged exchange rate then these depreciation pressures will automatically translate into a significant monetary tightening. The right thing to do is therefore obvious to allow (if needed) the kwanza to depreciate to adjust to the shock.

What we have been seeing is effectively the petro-monetary transmission mechanism at work. Hence, given Angola’s dollar peg a drop in oil prices – and hence in Angolan export prices – has caused downward pressure kwanza and the Angolan central bank has tried to curb these depreciation pressures by tightening monetary conditions. However, the central bank has now rightly allowed the necessary devaluation of the kwanza.

However, the latest policy decision from the Angolan central bank – while warranted – is not enough. The decision is essentially a completely discretionary adjustment within the present regime. However, what Angola really needs is not discretionary adjustments of the exchange rate peg, but a rule-based monetary policy regime, which automatically adjusts monetary conditions to external shocks – such as a decline in global oil prices.

This is what I suggested back in 2013:

There are two ways of ensuring such depreciation. The first one is to simply to allow the kwanza to float freely. That however, would necessitate serious reforms to deepen the Angolan capital markets and the introduction of an nominal target – such as either an inflation target or an NGDP target. Even though financial markets reforms undoubtedly are warranted I have a hard time seeing that happening fast. Therefore, an alternative option – the introduction of a Export Price Norm (EPN) is – is clearly something the Angolan authorities should consider. What I call EPN Jeff Frankel originally termed Peg-the-Export-Price (PEP).

I have long been a proponent of the Export Price Norm for commodity exporting economies such as Russia, Australia or Angola (or Malaysia for that matter). The idea with EPN is that the commodity exporting economy pegs the currency to the price of the commodity it exports such as oil in the case of Angola. Alternatively the currency should be pegged to a basket of a foreign currency (for example the dollar) and the oil price. The advantage of EPN is that it will combine the advantages of both a floating exchange (an “automatic” adjustment to external shocks) and of a pegged exchange rate (a rule based monetary policy). Furthermore, for a country like Angola where nearly everything that is being produced in the country is exported the EPN will effectively be an quasi-NGDP target as export growth and aggregate demand growth (NGDP growth) will be extremely highly correlated. So by stabilizing the export price in local currency the central bank will effectively be stabilizing aggregate demand and NGDP.

Operationally it would be extremely simple for the Angolan central bank to implement an EPN regime as al it would take would be to target a basket of for example oil and US dollars, which would not be very different operationally than what it is already doing. Without having done the ‘math’ I would imagine that a 20% oil and 80% US dollar basket would be fitting. That would provide a lot of projection against the China shock.

So yes, the devaluation of the kwanza is the right policy decision right now and within the present (outdated) regime, but the Angolan authorities should as fast as policy move towards a entirely new monetary policy regime and my recommendation would certainly be to implement some variation of an Export Price Norm.

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See some of my older posts on EPN here:

Oil-exporters need to rethink their monetary policy regimes

The Colombian central bank should have a look at the Export Price Norm

Ukraine should adopt an ‘Export Price Norm’

The RBA just reminded us about the “Export Price Norm”

The “Export Price Norm” saved Australia from the Great Recession

Should small open economies peg the currency to export prices?

Angola should adopt an ‘Export-Price-Norm’ to escape the ‘China shock’

Commodity prices, currencies and monetary policy

Malaysia should peg the renggit to the price of rubber and natural gas

The Cedi Panic: When prayers don’t work you go for currency controls

A modest proposal for post-Chavez monetary reform in Venezuela

“The Bacon Standard” (the PIG PEG) would have saved Denmark from the Great Depression

PEP, NGDPLT and (how to avoid) Russian monetary policy failure

Turning the Russian petro-monetary transmission mechanism upside-down

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If you want to hear me speak about these topics or other related topics don’t hesitate to contact my speaker agency Specialist Speakers – e-mail: daniel@specialistspeakers.com or roz@specialistspeakers.com.