The incumbent administration of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has successfully paid off USD 447 million in debt incurred by the previous administration of Former President and opposition leader Abdulla Yameen.

This was announced during the presidential address, delivered during the inaugural sitting of the People’s Majlis on Thursday morning.

As such, highlighting that the largest and most abrupt drawback was recorded in 2020 since the Maldives began collecting economic statistics, the president stated that the GDP of the Maldives decreased by 33.5 percent in 2020.

With this being said, he stated that the livelihoods of the Maldivian people would have gravitated towards destruction as “never experienced before”, if the government had not taken “swift” and “effective” measures. As such, the positive impacts of the actions taken by the government, were seen within a year.

Shedding light on the country’s tourism revival journey, the president stated that the government targeted to welcome one million tourists during 2021, but it passed the expected target and welcomed more than 1.3 arrivals during the previous year.

Solih in his presidential address stated that productivity for 2021 is expected to be between 31.6 percent and 38.5 percent, which is much higher than what was forecasted for the Maldives by International Financial Institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

As such, IMF estimated that the Maldives would be among the top five economies globally expected to grow the most in the ongoing year, with which the president highlighted that the government expects a 12 percent increase in the GDP during the year.

The Maldivian president also revealed that Maldives expects to welcome 1.5 million tourists this year.

On 29 December 2021, the government repaid the USD 250 million swap facility from the Reserve Bank of India in July 2019 to help manage the state reserve as well. At the end of 2021, Maldives state reserve sat at USD 791.2 million.

An enthusiastic president revealed that his administration will begin taking measures in 2022 to resolve the foreign currency crisis and contain the value of MVR and amend the legal framework relating to the foreign currency market.

Further, he went on to stress that the government would be engaged in the process of financial lending and borrowing, if it runs the affairs of state and manages its economy, adding that the government remains confident and determined to maintain its economic goals.

A hopeful president noted that next year will be the year Maldives sets the mark to direct the economy to pre-Covid levels.