A committee chaired by Sovereignty Council member Ibrahim Jaber has directed officials to draw on the Central Bank's experience and foreign models to bring Sudanese expatriates' savings and remittances into official channels.
The army-aligned authorities' Economic Performance Monitoring Committee, chaired by Sovereignty Council member Lieutenant General Ibrahim Jaber, met on Tuesday 3 November and discussed how to use the savings and remittances of Sudanese abroad to support the economy, the state news agency SUNA reported.
Graham Abdelqader, undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, Information, Tourism and Antiquities, told reporters the meeting looked at drawing on the experience of the Central Bank of Sudan and other countries. The aim, he said, was to put expatriates' savings and transfers to work for the economy while meeting their interests, given their role in supporting the country and their families during the war (CERHA summary of SUNA's Arabic report). The committee also reviewed export and import lists from the trade ministry and discussed updating trade protocols with neighbouring countries. It directed officials to improve the "Eisali" electronic receipts system, which he said had raised revenue, and to promote the single window and electronic payment services.
Money outside the system
The meeting did not announce specific incentives, such as preferential exchange rates. Sudan Tribune, reporting the same meeting, said the war and deteriorating banking conditions had severely disrupted transfers and widened the gap between official and parallel exchange rates. It put the losses from remittances bypassing official channels at $4–6 billion a year, citing estimates. The paper also cited estimates that Sudanese expatriates' savings and capital range from $25 billion to $60 billion, and said annual remittances had previously been valued at about $3 billion. These estimates vary widely, and Sudan Tribune did not attribute them to a single official source.
Remittances are a key source of foreign exchange and, for millions of households, a lifeline. Much of that money now flows through informal brokers and mobile networks rather than banks.
Mounting pressures
The committee met during a sharp deterioration in living conditions in army-held areas. Drone strikes on power stations have caused widespread blackouts, the energy ministry has declared an emergency, and fuel is scarce. In Khartoum, dozens of bakeries closed last week over shortages of flour, diesel and power, and the Central Bank announced plans for an import fund. The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Denise Brown, said this week that hundreds of aid trucks were stranded for lack of fuel.
Image: A stack of Sudanese pound banknotes, the result of exchanging 75 US dollars, 2022. Abbaspan, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.