Sudan eyes economic revival as US lifts trade sanctions

KHARTOUM: Up until a few years ago, Sudanese engineer Ahmed Abdallah used to manage his family’s expenses on his $400 monthly salary but he has since had to take out loans to make ends meet. With the US State Department’s announcement Friday of an end to some of its toughest economic and trade sanctions on Sudan, Abdallah and his fellow Sudanese are looking forward to a brighter future.

“We’ve been barely able to survive as my salary cannot cover even our essential needs,” the private sector employee told AFP at his home in an impoverished neighborhood of Omdurman, the twin city of Sudan’s capital Khartoum. “At times when several needs come together, it just becomes impossible,” he

said as his four children played outside the family’s mud and brick house. Economic conditions in Sudan have been mired in persistent fiscal deficits, high inflation and the trade embargo imposed by Washington in 1997 over Khartoum’s alleged support for Islamist militant groups.

On Friday, Washington announced that the embargo will be lifted from October 12, ending Sudan’s two decades of isolation from Western markets. The financial sanctions had put restrictions on international banking transactions, exchange of technology and spare parts, and other cumbersome trade regulations have hampered economic growth. —AFP