The total annual amount sent by expatriates to their families in Sudan, dropped from $3 billion in 2011, to $400 million last year.<\/p>\n
In a workshop held in Khartoum on Tuesday, Khalid Hussein reported that about 90 percent of the remittances come from Arab countries, and are spent on health, education, and consumption, rather than production.<\/p>\n
The economist pointed out that that the share of remittances in the GDP dropped from six percent in 2003, to 1 percent in 2014. He attributed the reduction to the difference between the official exchange rate and the “parallel market”, as the black market is called in Sudan.<\/p>\n
Hussein called for the formation of a body, made up by representatives of the government, the banking sector, the stock market, and expatriates, to find a solution to the problem.<\/p>\n
The head of the Sudanese consulates acknowledged the weak relationship between the Sudanese expatriates and the government, saying that it is governed by levies and taxes.<\/p>\n