IMF extends $334m in aid to South Sudan

IMF extends $334m in aid to South Sudan

JUBA: The IMF has loaned $334 million (284 million euros) to South Sudan, the country’s central bank governor said Tuesday, as its ailing economy teeters from a currency crisis and soaring inflation. It is the third time in a year the Washington DC-based lender has extended financial aid to the troubled country, which ran out of foreign exchange reserves last year when oil prices fell sharply. The price slump, brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, deprived the fragile government in Juba of much-needed revenue and sent its currency into freefall.

Earlier this year, one US dollar was fetching 700 South Sudanese Pounds on the black market-the weakest exchange rate since independence a decade ago. Central Bank Governor Dier Tong Ngor said the IMF loan would “substantially boost” foreign reserves and allow room to try and recover in the midst of the pandemic. “The increase in reserves will help build external resilience and sustain the current reforms in the foreign exchange market,” Ngor said in a statement seen by AFP.

South Sudan is emerging from five years of civil bloodshed that left 380,000 dead and shattered its economy, which is almost entirely dependent on oil. When it split from Sudan to the north