Mauritania’s economic growth in 2019 is expected to reach 6.3 percent, while the inflation rate will be kept below 3.5 percent, reports said on Friday.
Speaking in Nouakchott, at a press briefing after the cabinet approved the State budget for the year 2020, Finance Minister Mohamed Lemine Ould Dhéhb unveiled a foreign exchange reserves capable of covering 5.7 months of imports.
He said that the country’s imports today amounted to $1.6 billion, or 60.33 billion ouguiya MRUs, compared to spending of $1.4 billion, or 54 billion ouguiya MRUs. In doing so, it forecasts a budget surplus of 1.1 percent of gross domestic product (excluding the extractive sector).
During the same press briefing, the Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and ICTs, Government spokesman Sidi Ould Salem, announced that the budget in question provides an envelope of $8.4 million (320 million Ouguiyas MRU) to finance a Scientific Research Fund.
An Agency for Scientific Research and Innovation will be created to manage this fund, he explained.
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