Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan in Berlin

Finance Minister announces decision unifying exchange rate

Khartoum, Feb. 21 (SUNA) – Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Dr. Gebriel Ibrahim an-nounced today that his ministry took a decision to unify the exchange rate and assigned the task of managing it to the Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) in a flexible manner, in coordination with commer-cial banks and exchanges. The minister said in a press conference held at the premises of the Council of Ministers here today that the chronic structural imbalances in the national economy which were represented in big deficit in the general budget and persistent deficit in the balance of payments, had led to an unprecedented rise in inflation rates and a terrible depreciation of the national currency rate against foreign currencies. He pointed out that this dire situation made it imperative to intervene to prevent collapse of the na-tional economy. The minister explained that the decision has inflationary implications, but the government has taken all precautions that would lead to the stability and improvement of the national currency exchange rate, as well as elimination of the deficit in the general budget that leads to financing by deficit, which is one of the biggest causes of high inflation. Dr. Ibrahim explained that the benefits of the decision include, among others, stabilizing the national currency exchange rate, attracting remittances from Sudanese expatriates, attracting foreign invest-ment flows, stimulating exports and obtaining their revenues through official channels and writing off Sudan's foreign debts as part of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. He stressed that this decision is made soley by the government and it came after consultations with specialists and was not dictated by any other external party. The minister urged institutions and dealers in the foreign currency market to show pure patriotism and to stay away from speculation in the currency market in pursuit of immediate gains as what is achieved for the national economy is more comprehensive and lasting than what is gained by tempo-rary speculations. BT/BT