Maldives economy to grow by 4.5% in 2014

Maldives is expected to growth at 4.5 percent in 2014, driven mainly by tourism, local media reported here on Tuesday. Maldives grew at 3.7 percent in 2013, local media outlet Haveeru reported. According to the monthly economic review published by the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), the budget deficit is projected to be 3.2 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the latest balance of payment forecasts estimate that the current account deficit to widen to 562.5 million U.S. dollars, which is 22 percent of GDP in 2014. This year's economic growth will be driven mainly by the tourist sector, the review had estimated. Last year, due to an increase in tourist arrivals from China, the total tourist arrivals rose by 17 percent. The review, which is based on the data from the Department of National Planning, had stated that the tourists had spent approximately 2 billion U.S. dollars during their stay in the Maldives. As MMA had not received the statistics of the projected growth in the tourism, agriculture and the fisheries industry for the fiscal year of 2014, the Central Bank had not included their forecasts for the aforementioned industries in their review.