President of the African Caucus urges the combat of illicit financial flows in Africa

LUANDA, Angola, (Capital Markets in Africa) — The President of the African Group and Minister of Finance of Angola, Armando Manuel, declared in the welcoming speech to the participants at the Luanda Caucus- 2015 meeting.

“This obliges us to look for other sources of financing including savings that can be made from restricting illicit financial flows from Africa, especially measures that can be taken to radically reduce these mass monetary outflows and guarantee that they are used for development in the African continent”, he noted.

Meanwhile, David Robinson, the Vice-Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and one of the speakers at the African Caucus said that the fall in oil prices is a significant negative shock for the oil exporting countries which have had to make marked adjustments.

David Robinson, who presented the theme “Africa: Regional Economic Outlooks”  pointed to the following public financial measures:  budget cuts  in the 2015 expenditure, above all in investments, fuel subsidies reform, taxation measures, including tax rate increases, and greater exchange rate flexibility wherever possible.

Indeed, the representative of the IMF to the African Caucus noted that the oil producing countries have to tackle issues such as the orderly implementation of spending cuts, prioritise social sectors and infrastructure and mobilise non-oil revenues. It is necessary to address low liquidity in the foreign exchange markets in countries with flexible arrangements and the absence of foreign exchange instruments in countries whose currency is indexed to the Euro.

The emphasis of this Thursday afternoon fell on combatting illicit financial flows to improve the mobilisation of internal resources, a topic addressed by Thabo Mbeki, the Ex-President of South Africa.

The forum assembles more than nineteen Ministers of Finance and fourteen Governors of the Central Banks representing approximately forty member countries of the African Caucus, including Angola.