Committee passes Foreign Currency Bill with revisions

The Public Accounts Committee of the parliament on Wednesday has approved the Foreign Currency Bill with revisions extending leniencies to tourist resorts.

At the committee’s meeting on Wednesday – held discreetly – approved the bill with the following revisions:

• Increasing the age limit for exemption from dollar age from 10 to 12
• Provision of exchanging foreign currency lower than 20 percent of the revenue for tourist resorts facing financial detriments, provided that the resort sufficiently proves to, and the case is subsequently reviewed by the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)

The People’s National Congress (PNC) parliamentary group leader and Inguraidhoo MP Ibrahim Falah sponsored the bill on behalf of the government on Monday.

Debate on the bill was held only on Tuesday, after which it was accepted to the parliament and subsequently was sent to the Public Accounts Committee for review with 51 votes, while only four MPs voted against it.

At Wednesday’s meeting amid the bill’s review, the committee had summoned the Maldives Association for Tourism Industry (MATI) for discussions.

The Foreign Currency Bill extends preference of either exchanging USD 500 per each tourist arriving at tourist resorts per month, or 20 percent of the total revenue earned per month at local banks.

Earlier when the central bank made this exchange with local banks mandatory, it attracted significant criticism from the tourism industry stakeholders with many claiming this was not feasible. Many criticized the MMA regulation demanded exchanging foreign currency beyond the earnings of the tourist properties.

Despite criticisms, all tourist resorts have already been registered with MMA.