Expert: Allow Basic Commodities Import

Sudan Events – Nahid Oshi

Ibrahim Onour, Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Khartoum, has pinpointed to several options for the government to select as a road map for managing the Sudanese economy during the war.
He said that there are several decisions that could have been applied since the outbreak of the war to mitigate the shock of the war on people’s livelihoods, including the issuing of government bonds with a maturity period of one year from the date of their issuance and obligating all commercial banks to purchase quantities of them according to the estimates of the Ministry of Finance.
He said another option is for the government to open the door for the import of basic and strategic commodities, such as medicines and essential foods, on the account of deferred payment contracts guaranteed by gold from a country like Egypt, with which we have trade agreements as well as imposing a tax of up to 5% on electronic cash transfers for commercial activities that exceed certain ceilings.
He said that if these options were adopted from the beginning of the war, it would have been possible to cover part or all of the public sector salaries, at least for the next six months, by virtue of ensuring the flow of imported goods, and thus it would increase the budget revenues, in which about 80% of taxes are indirect, in a form of customs on imported goods in general.