The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved the third assessment of the assistance plan for Mozambique, allowing the “immediate disbursement” of a new tranche of 60.7 million dollars (55.4 million euros) for budget support.
In a statement released on Monday, the IMF said that the executive board had “concluded the third review” of the implementation of the 36-month Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program in Mozambique. With this third tranche, total disbursements to Mozambique under this ECF amount to around 273 million dollars (249.2 million euros).
“The program’s performance has been satisfactory. Five of the eight structural benchmarks were met at end-December 2023, and three of the four quantitative performance criteria were met,” says the IMF on the evaluation of the ECF agreed with Mozambique.
“Based on the corrective measures adopted by the authorities, the executive board approved a waiver of the non-observance of the continuous performance criterion on the non-accumulation of new arrears of public and publicly guaranteed external payments, which were not met due to delays in the repayment of debt service,” it also notes.
This ECF program was approved in May 2022 and provides total financing of 456 million dollars (416.2 million euros) to Mozambique.
“Economic recovery is accelerating, supported by liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in a context of modest non-mining growth. At the same time, inflationary pressures have fallen sharply. While the outlook remains positive, significant risks remain, mainly due to adverse weather events and the fragile security situation,” warns the Fund’s deputy managing director, Bo Li, quoted in the statement released Monday.