Republic of Congo’s new finance minister targets debt reduction

The Republic of Congo’s Finance Minister Christian Yoka has pledged to ease the country’s debt strains and servicing costs by tackling borrowing and spending.

In his first interview since taking office earlier this month, Yoka said he was working urgently to address the challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-largest oil producer, whose economic model is tethered to oil production and prices.

He also pledged to more than double the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

“Because of the different crises that we had – COVID, then Ukraine – and each time you have all these geopolitical situations, the country is in a dire situation,” said Yoka.

Diversifying toward agriculture and tourism would help to escape the current boom-and-bust cycle dictated by oil dependency, he said.

Topping his list of issues to tackle is the debt-to-GDP ratio – a key measure for assessing a country’s ability to repay its debt – which currently stands