Luanda, Angola, 15 Dec – The Angolan Finance Ministry and the United States embassy Monday in Luanda signed the reference terms to send a resident consultant from the US Treasury Department to Luanda to support Angola in issuing its treasury bonds and managing them, Angolan news agency Angop reported.

The consultant from the US Treasury Department is due to arrive in Luanda in January, 2010, for a visit of between two and five days, to work with the Angolan Finance Ministry and the National Bank of Angola (BNA), under the terms of the document signed by Minister Severim de Morais and by Ambassador Dan Mozena.

The Angolan Finance Minister said that this deal with Washington was an “important step” as it was a “qualitative leap’ in Angolan debt management and issuing bonds.

In his turn, the US diploma said that the technical support would make it possible for the Finance Ministry and the BNA to “develop their capacity to issue bonds and manage debt more effectively.”

Mozena said that the benefit of the partner was that it would allow Angola to “better investigate its resources in its national market and the international market to fund government investments without resorting to costly international credit lines or mortgaging its future oil production.” (macauhub)