Mr. Gerry Rice, Director of Communications at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today:

“The IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde and Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi met today to discuss the economic challenges that the country is facing. The Managing Director welcomed the initial steps being taken on the agreed reforms and policies. She stressed the need for further policy action aimed at stabilizing the economy and for more decisive efforts to improve transparency, in particular an international and independent audit of the companies that were funded under the loans disclosed in April 2016. The Managing Director welcomed that the President indicated the Government of Mozambique’s willingness to work with the IMF on the terms-of-reference for this process—to be initiated by the office of the Attorney General—and to implement it. To this end, an IMF staff team will visit Maputo next week.”