Angola’s Central Bank Keeps Benchmark Interest Rate at 10%

The central bank of Angola, Africa’s biggest oil producer after Nigeria, kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a fourth month.

The key lending rate was left at 10 percent, the Luanda-based Banco Nacional de Angola said in an e-mailed statement. The bank lowered the rate by a quarter of a percentage point in January, only the second cut since it was introduced in October 2011.

Inflation slowed to 9 percent in April from 9.1 percent in the previous month, the bank said.

The bank said it took into consideration the inflation data, conditions in the economy and fiscal and monetary accounts in order to “contribute to the maintenance of price stability.”