São Paulo – The Ministry of Finance of Sudan announced this week that the government will not perform a new cut in subsidies on fuel prices until a new decline in international oil prices takes place. According to the news report by the website of the newspaper Sudan Tribune, the low prices of oil came as a relief to energy importers such as Sudan.
The minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Abdel Rahman Dirar, said that the government will continue to subsidize fuel to meet the demands of the local market, but that in the case of other drops in the price of oil, they will be cut in full.
According to the minister, the money saved with lower oil prices will be used to fund the productive sector and transferred to low-income families and social programs. One of the announcements made within this context was the 20% increase in public workers’ wages in 2016, which will be funded by the savings generated by oil prices.
Sudan is not a large oil producer, but it has operations in the sector. The Arab country is an agricultural producer and has been investing increasing amounts the sector, including sugar cane and ethanol production. Sudan has a population of 40 million people and posted a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of USD 73.8 billion in 2014, according to data from the World Bank.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
