‘Sudan to curb rapid rise of Dollar price soon’: MP

The Sudanese parliament’s Economic Committee has announced that soon decisions will be taken in order to contain the increasing exchange rate of the Dollar against the Pound, and “bring it back to its lowest level”. The decisions will involve the stoppage of the hard currency trade on the “parallel market”, as the black market is termed, and put a halt to the importation of unnecessary goods, the head of the Economic Committee, Salem El Safi Hijeir, said in a press statement on Monday. He pointed to the rise of the dollar at the black market to more than SDG9. The Committee has decided to call for the Minister of Finance and the president of the Central Bank of Sudan next week, “after they have returned from Turkey” to discuss the “destruction of the Sudanese economy”, and question them about measures to halt the rapid increase of the Dollar price, and the revenue proceeds from exports during the first quarter of the year. Hijeir said that his Committee has held extensive meetings with the Finance Minister and the president of the Bank of Sudan since the overall 2014 budget was filed three months ago. “We have devised plans and measures to stabilise the hard currency exchange rates. The measures are to be monitored by the National Parliament, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Sudan.” “The measures will involve an increase of the Sudanese export. Also foreign financial institutions will be addressed to bring in grants and loans in foreign currency,” Hijeir explained. The head of the Economic Committee acknowledged that the increase in exports so far has not been great, and that the country is suffering under external debt obligations that have to be paid back in hard currency – “while we also need hard currency for the development projects”. He ruled out a further increase of the Dollar price set for customs, “so that the citizens will not be affected by price rises of medicines and other essential commodities”. (Source: shorouknews.com) Photo: The Sudanese parliament (shorouknews.com) Related: ‘Sudan in need of $5 billion’: economist (28 April 2014) ‘Corrupt’ Khartoum staff arrested; US Dollar rises to 9.3 Sudanese Pounds (25 April 2014) Sudan receives $1 billion deposit from Qatar (2 April 2014) NCP report expresses fears of instability due to economic decline in Sudan (19 November 2013)