SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Reuters –Sudan announces nine-month plan to rescue economy, tame inflation
Reuters reports that Sudan’s transitional government will start a nine-month economic rescue plan next month aimed at curbing rampant inflation while ensuring supplies of basic goods, and is asking the World Bank for $2 billion.
Finance Minister Ibrahim Elbadawi said the new plan “aims ... to restructure the banking sector, rationalise government spending, address the state’s financial burden and review tax exemptions, because 60% of economic activity is tax exempt.”
Elbadawi also said that the plan will combat corruption, and bread and fuel subsidies will remain until at least June 2020. The government wants to replace commodity subsidies with direct cash transfers to poor families by the end of the rescue plan, he added.
Elbadawi also said that US officials said that Sudan’s removal from the US terrorism list may take 9 months to a year “because it is tied to Congress”.