Sudanese president calls for Western economic assistance

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday called on the Western countries to provide economic assistance to help his country deal with the negative consequences of South Sudan's separation. "The efforts would continue with the Western countries, particularly the United States, Britain and Norway, to hold the economic conference, scheduled in Turkey early next year, to help Sudan overcome the financial gap due to its loss of the oil revenues," said al-Bashir when addressing the Sudanese National Assembly (parliament). "We hope the conference would come up with solutions regarding Sudan's external debts and the economic sanctions imposed on it, in a manner that helps achieving economic development," he added. The Sudanese president acknowledged that the separation of South Sudan and loss of oil revenues had a negative impact on Sudan's economy, saying that "to compensate for this loss and overcome its negative impact, we will depend on agriculture and industry as major sources for development." He further stressed the importance of exempting Sudan's external debts, saying that "the debts exemption file has been moved reasonably and we have worked out alternative policies to leverage the economy depending on restructuring the government, reforming the administration and rationing the government expenditure." Al-Bashir announced a package of policies and decisions to lessen the burden of living through controlling the market, curbing the price rise and combating monopolization. "The government will press ahead with the policy of providing hard currency and rationing the government expenditure. Next year will witness the implementation of the tripartite economic program to replace the imports, diversify the exports and provide the basic commodities for the citizens," said al-Bashir. Sudan is suffering an economic crisis after it lost around 75 percent of the revenues of oil produced in South Sudan, which officially seceded in July 9 this year. The Sudanese pound also lost around 40 percent of its value during the past two months against the U.S. dollar, sterling and euro. The decrease in the Sudanese pound was accompanied by a drastic rise in the prices of basic materials, while the inflation rate jumped to about 21 percent in August. The Sudanese government has adopted a package of measures to stabilize the economy, including a temporary cancelation of fees on 12 basic food commodities.