 CONCLUSION |
The Sudan is probably one of those countries in which case one's presumptions and exceptions do not match at all with the actual personal experiences. The country is a playground for international interests and so forth suffers substantially from propaganda about the war, human rights and terrorist regime. By any means the information what is currently available on the Sudan is very much biased by these issues and ends up serving other than the Sudanese interests. There are hardly any guides neither for business nor pleasure, and this limited knowledge creates unawareness, fear, hesitations, which thus unfortunately hinders the development and opening up of the country, which badly needs its reputation to be cleaned up. It goes without saying that this is far from benefiting the potential investors or businessmen.
After the problem of the war is solved, by any means the Sudan should be accepted to the international debt relief programs of IMF, because even at the moment the country already fulfils all the necessary economic criteria and it is only for the political reasons it is not yet benefiting from those programs. Most of the major economic indicators are showing positive trend: inflation has dropped from three digit figure to a one digits figure, the exchange rate has been stable for years and GDP growth is promising. Most of all, the Sudan has maintained its economic stability without external aid and donors, and has still managed to place itself on the top of the African countries to receive foreign direct investment. The main period of the privatisation process took place in 1990-5, and some successful examples are the national telecommunications company Sudatel, and the more recent example Sudan Airways which is currently selling 51% of its shares.
On the political scene the new Libya-Egyptian Initiative of summer 2001 has brought optimism in obtaining the peace in the South, and the US president George Bush in September 2001 decided to send a special diplomatic envoy to the Sudan after years the last ambassador left. The US sanctions are expected to be lifted, some say by the end of the year 2001, but as all of these mater are interwoven it is difficult to speculate which mater will be solved first and how. All what is known is that after so many decades of the war the playground has become more complicated full of different interests, and the peace will require compromises on all sides. | 
Regarding the structure of the economy, there are two backbones in the Sudan. A new comer is the oil, whose exportation begun in 1999,mainly by the Asians, and which produces the current surplus in trade. However, it is the agriculture that still employs the most of the population, and many observers say that the Sudan needs to be cautious not to let the oil rush shadow the agriculture too much. That's why it is emphasized that the oil revenues should be more carefully and constructively reallocated, particularly towards agriculture and infrastructure. One of the blue ship companies of the Sudan and particularly its agriculture is The Gum Arabic Company Ltd., which is a Sudanese success story. |
