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The Angolan central bank, the Banco Nacional De Angola (BNA), has allowed the Angolan currency to devalue by over 13 percent against the dollar as Angola struggles with declining oil prices, which has significantly reduced government revenues.

The bid price of the Angolan kwanza weakened to 154.838 per dollar on Tuesday – the lowest since September 2001 – compared with 134.573 per dollar recorded on December 31st, according to latest data published on the BNA’s website.

The kwanza, which has fallen for eight consecutive years, fell by over 24 percent in 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The governor of the Angolan central bank, Jose Pedro de Morais, has been attempting to reduce the difference between the official kwanza rate and the black market rate, which hovered between 270 and 280 kwanzas per dollar last year.

Just like Nigeria’s central bank, the BNA has imposed a strict foreign exchange regime, restricting forex sales to essential sectors and businesses as well as curbing foreign currency transactions. Angola is Africa’s second largest oil producer. The country’s foreign reserves stood at $24.17 billion as at July 2015.

“The devaluation, besides placing the kwanza in accordance with the fundamentals of economy, also has the advantage of promoting national production,” Carlo Rosado de Carvalho, an economics professor at Catholic University in Luanda, told Bloomberg.

Chibuike Oguh is Financial Nigeria's Frontier Markets Analyst