Sudan export earnings to hit 2.43 billion dollars, most from oil: report

KHARTOUM, Dec 25 (AFP) — The governor of Sudan’s central bank expects the country’s export revenues to climb to 2.43 billion US dollars (2 billion euros) by year’s end, with oil bringing in the bulk of the earnings, a press report said Thursday.

Governor Sabir Mohamed al-Hassan was quoted by the official Al Anbaa daily as telling the National Assembly on Wednesday that petroleum exports would bring in 1.958 billion dollars, nearly equal to Sudan’s total export earnings last year, which amounted to 1.98 billion dollars.

Other exports would bring in 472 million dollars, he was quoted as saying.

Hassan said imports would reach 2.82 billion dollars by the end of this year compared to 2.446 billion dollars the previous year.

Foreign investment was at 600 million dollars in the first half of the year and is estimated to exceed one billion dollars by year’s end, said the central bank boss without giving details on the sources of the investment.

The governor said the central bank plans to train personnel from southern Sudan to help establish and run the banking system in the south after peace is achieved.

John Garang, the leader of southern-based rebel group the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), is currently holding talks in Kenya with Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha aimed at ending a 20-year civil war between the oil-rich south and Khartoum.

Last week, the two sides reached a rough agreement on sharing the proceeds from the country’s oil production, currently at 300,000 barrels per day.

The United States has said it is hopeful a peace settlement will be reached by the end of the year.

A number of southerners have been given posts at the Bank of Sudan and other government banks, said Hassan.

As part of a drive to spread the banking culture in the south, a branch of the central bank was opened in Wau, the main city in Bahr el-Ghazal region, early this year to operate along with the branch in Juba, Equatoria, he said.

Hassan also said arrangements have been made to raise the capital of the Ivory Bank, which was established in 1994 as a partnership between the central government, southern states and the private sector, to three billion dinars (about 12 million dollars / euros).

He did not mention the volume of the present capital of the bank. Ivory Bank has purchased four branches of the state-owned Khartoum Bank in the south, said Hassan.