The International Monetary Fund expects to carry out a staff visit to ‍Gabon next ‍month as part of ongoing work with the Gabonese ​authorities, but no formal request for a programme has been made, a ⁠Fund spokesperson said on Friday.

Gabon has become increasingly reliant on regional ⁠capital markets to meet ‌its financing needs, though appetite for its debt "has weakened substantially", ratings agency Fitch said in December, when it ⁠downgraded the central African country's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating. Thierry Minko, who was appointed finance and economy minister at the start of the year, said earlier this week that ⁠the government would implement an ​economic growth programme "with support" from the IMF, and that technical and institutional discussions with the ‍Fund had intensified.

An IMF spokesperson said Gabon's new administration had "stepped up ​engagement" with the Fund following this month's government reshuffle.

"While the authorities announced their intention to work towards an IMF-supported programme, we are yet to receive a formal request," the spokesperson said.

"We look forward to continuing to work together, and expect a staff visit in February to assess macroeconomic and fiscal developments and discuss the authorities’ policy and reform plans." In October, Gabon's then-vice president Alexandre Barro Chambrier told ⁠Reuters that the government was not ‌considering a debt restructuring or reprofiling. He said Gabon was in the process of rebasing its calculations of GDP, which would ‌make its debt-to-GDP ⁠ratio more favourable.

(Reporting by Bate Felix and Portia Crowe; Additional reporting by ⁠Gerauds Wilfried Obangome; editing by Barbara Lewis)