Maldives hikes economic growth, tourist arrivals forecast

The government has raised the forecasts for economic growth and tourist arrival numbers for the year. 

The finance ministry has started releasing a bi-annual report on the revisions to the economic forecasts. The first issue of the report was released on Thursday.

Finance minister Ibrahim Ameer on Saturday tweeted about the changes made to economic forecasts in the report.

Among the changes in economic forecasts, the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth forecast is raised by 1.8 points:

Medium-range forecasts have also been revised. 

Ameer said the upward revision is mainly due to the strong growth in the tourism sector. He pointed out that the number of tourist arrivals this year has seen a year-over-year increase of 17%.

The government had earlier estimated that 1.8 million tourists would visit the Maldives this year. However, with the number of tourist arrivals more than previously expected, the current estimate is that 1.9 million tourists will visit this year.

Ameer attributed the strong growth in tourism to increasing number of airlines operating to the Maldives and better than expected performance in the Chinese market.

Ameer said the country's nominal GDP this year will cross MVR 100 billion for the first time in history.

"This is a testament to the sound macroeconomic policies adopted by the government to achieve steady growth regardless of the multiple crisis we face," he said.

According to the latest statistics released by the tourism ministry, more than 730,000 tourists have arrived in the Maldives so far this year.