The Republic of Congo's Finance Minister Christian Yoka, who assumed the new post last Wednesday, aims to reduce the country's debt burden as well as diversify the country's economy away from oil dependency, he said in an interview with a Western media outlet.
"It's quite a burden, and with the repayment that the country has to face, of course, that is a weight on the foreign reserves," the Congolese minister said.
To tackle the debt problem, the minister will focus on renegotiating and refinancing local currency debt, as foreign debt accounts for just over a third of total debt.
"If we keep on going out to borrow just to finance the current expenditures, we are going into the wall for sure," Yoka noted, adding that he explores possibilities for government spending cuts.
Diversifying the economy away from dependence on oil production towards agriculture and tourism to make it more sustainable is also a priority for a newly appointed minister, according to the report.
Last Wednesday, during the handover ceremony, Yoka's predecessor, Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Ondaye drew his successor's attention to the need to continue work on mobilization of resources for the debt-for-nature swap operation, linked to questions of financing development objectives and the climate transition, as well as to the finalization of the 6th review of the program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a three-year $455 million arrangement approved by the IMF board in January 2022, to consolidate the economic and financial progress made, according to the statement by the Congolese Ministry of Finance.
In the interview, Minister Yoka said that while the IMF is an important partner for Congo, it is too early to make proposals for new loans. Yoka also stressed that he was cautious about debt-for-development swaps.