Analise do impacto dos preços de combustıveis no desenvolvimento economico de Moçambique

Abstract

Oil plays an important role in today’s economy and this became more evident in the early 1970s, when unstable oil prices began to affect the economy. Each economy reacts differently to these changes in oil prices. The strength and duration of the effects of unstable oil prices depend on the characteristics of each economy. This paper examines the impact of fuel prices on Mo- zambique’s economic development over the period 2017 to 2023, using VAR and VEC models. The study assesses how variations in crude oil and gasoline prices affect economic indicators such as GDP, inflation and the exchange rate. A quantitative approach was used to develop this work, using a secondary database, which is monthly. The data was extracted from the National Institute of Statistics and the Global Petrol Price. The results indicate that an increase of 10% in fuel prices is associated with an increase of approximately 0.6% in inflation and a depreciation of 0.4% in the exchange rate, while the impact on GDP was identified as non-linear, ranging from -0.2% to +0.3% depending on economic conditions. The variance decomposition revealed that up to 35% of inflation variability can be explained by fluctuations in fuel prices, especially in the first two years after the shocks. These findings highlight the need for policies focused on stabilizing fuel prices and energy diversification to promote Mozambique’s economic resili- ence.