In December 2019, Sudan’s Balance of Payments (BoP) recorded a deficit of USD16.8 bn which puts tremendous pressure on the exchange rate to depreciate since Sudan continues to suffer from a severe shortage of foreign exchange. The trade balance in Sudan has recorded a growing deficit since the early 1970s. The reason for this is sluggish export performance and escalating import growth. Both the trade balance and the current account take the same trends, indicating that the trade deficit was a main driving force of the current account deficits. In this note, we identify and estimate the foreign capital that the Sudanese government can tap from three sources in the short term. We examine the current level of the minimum paid-up capital of the Sudanese banks, the potential of the remittance and current bottlenecks, and Sudanese government returns from the existing mining industry.
