SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Reuters - Exclusive: Sudan needs up to $5 billion in budget support to prevent collapse
In a Reuters exclusive Sudanese finance minister Ibrahim Elbadawi detailed Sudan’s reform plans, saying that Sudan needs $5 billion in budget support to avert economic collapse.
Elbadawi said that Sudan has only enough foreign currency reserves to fund imports for a few weeks, with Sudan needing to $2 billion in development funding along with a hoped-for $2 billion from Arab development funds.
Elbadawi said that the reform plans will include public salaries being raised by as much as 100% by April 2020, and by the second half of 2020, a social support network would be set up to allow the lifting of subsidies, with donor funding used to collect data to allow cash transfers for the needy.
Elbadawi also said that Sudan wants to produce bread based on sorghum, a local cereal, to import less wheat, with a spread between the official and black markets ended by June 2020.