The Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has stated that the economic progress of the Maldives will stand at 4.5 % by the end of 2019.
According to MMA, the economic progress of 2019 is a large drop compared to last year’s 7.5 %.
During the last Budget Committee meeting, MMA’s Deputy Governor Aishath Zahira stated that although last year’s budget predicted that economic progress would increase to 6.8%, actual values will be lower.
Due to improvements in the tourism sector, Zahira expressed hopes of an increase in economic progress at the end of the year.
It was initially estimated that economic progress in the tourism sector will increase by 9%. However, according to MMA, the current trends will place the increase at 14 percent.
Additionally, the number of nights tourists stay in the country will increase by 15% according to MMA’s calculations.
MMA has also estimated that the country’s inflation will be at 0.7 at the end of this year.
According to Zahira, the inflation rate was maintained at 1.3% in the second quarter after the country was at deflation for the first three months of 2019. And this was mainly because the effects of the policies that were amended in 2018 faded away in this year’s first quarter.
She also added that the base effect of changes brought by the government to maintain the prices of staple goods and decrease the fee of electricity and water have yet to be reflected in the prices.
World Bank estimated that the average economic progress of Maldives will stand at 5% for the next three years.
