This Wednesday (6), the Governor of the Banco de Moçambique delivered an inaugural lecture of the doctoral program in Development Studies, themed "Challenges of Monetary Policy Amid Crisis Management". 

The Governor started his speech by highlighting that the primary mandate of the central bank is to preserve the value of the national currency, the Metical, while ensuring low and stable inflation, so as to promote economic growth and the well-being of the general society.

According to Zandamela, tackling inflation is a rather complex task, given that policy measures are taken in advance, entail side effects on other variables and require in-depth knowledge of the transmission mechanism of the policy instrument used by the Banco de Moçambique.

"The chronic and structural deficits that mark the Mozambican economy add to the challenge of managing monetary policy, as the country has accumulated high debt, while not saving enough to offset the impact of the increasingly frequent and strong shocks" - said the Governor.

Rogério Zandamela also pointed out that, despite the transparent, credible and effective performance of monetary policy, as evidenced by several measures taken by the central bank, which allowed inflation to return to the single digits and upturn economic growth. It faces a high burden in crisis environments due to the limited performance of other policies or sectors, and various types of bottlenecks associated with the business environment, strengthening institutions, and good governance.  

For the Governor, monetary policy should not be seen as a universal solution for all challenges, because to stimulate economic growth other policies have to be more prominent and complementary to monetary policy.

Several times during his speech, Governor Rogério Zandamela defended that the country needs to save properly to face future crises.  In this vein, he furthered the thesis of the need for Mozambique to set up a sovereign fund to better manage revenues hailing from the exploitation of natural resources.

For his part, the Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Doctoral Program, Lourenço do Rosário, stated that the introduction of the doctoral course in Development Studies aims to contribute to finding solutions to the most pressing problems of Mozambican society.

The event was attended by members of the Board of Directors of the Banco de Moçambique, heads of public and private institutions, deans, academics and students.