Angola to ask IMF for $2 billion

A spokesman for Finance Minister Bastos de Almeida said the IMF had offered Angola a loan of $500 million in a recent meeting in Luanda.

However, "I wouldn't be surprised if they offered a bit more than that and then during the program sought to edge it up," Angola economic analyst Edward Georgen at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Radio France Internationale.

"A lot of African countries have found their foreign currency reserves falling very fast and this is putting pressure on the economy," George said.

Angola is Africa's largest oil producer and is seeking funds to put into oil development and infrastructure, RFI reported Wednesday.

After a three-decade civil war, Angola is "building cities from scratch, they are building a north-south motorway, a north-south railway, and a bridge over the Congo River which could cost as much as $3 billion," George said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.