Angola's central bank, whose governor was replaced last week, left its benchmark BNA rate at 16.0 percent and said it was paying particular attention to this year's trend of declining inflation.
The National Bank of Angola (BNA), which has kept its rate steady since June 2016, said inflation in the province of Luanda in September rose to 27.46 percent from 26.95 percent in August but compared with September last year, inflation was down by an annual 11.98 percentage points.
Angola's national inflation rate was steady at 25.18 percent in September and August at this year's lowest level, falling from 41.12 percent in December 2016.
Angola's inflation rate began accelerating in early 2015 as the fall in crude oil prices dented government revenue and foreign exchange earnings, weakening the kwanza's exchange rate and pushing up import prices and inflation.
On Friday Angola's president appointed Jose Massano as new BNA governor, replacing Walter Filipe da Silva who was appointed in March 2015.
The BNA then delayed the scheduled meeting of its monetary policy committee to Nov. 1 from the originally scheduled date of Oct. 27.
In today's statement, the BNA also said credit to the economy had fallen by 0.72 percent according to preliminary data for September while gross credit to the central government had risen 1.21 percent.
The exchange rate of Angola's kwanza against the U.S. dollar was unchanged at 165.92, BNA said.
The BNA has devalued the kwanza several times in recent years and has been quoting the kwanza around 165 per U.S. dollar since mid-April 2016. In January last year the central bank let the kwanza ease to around 155 from around 135, the rate it had targeted since September 2015.
The latest data for Angola's Gross Domestic Product show the economy contracted by an annual 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2016 as the economy remains in recession that began in the second quarter of 2015.
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