Maldives' economy needs emergency treatment, says new Pres Muizzu

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has said that the Maldives economy is in dire need of emergency economic treatment.

The country's debt has reached MVR 119 billion, this is the first time in the history of the country that the country's debt has reached MVR 119 billion.

President Muizzu said he would take strong and immediate steps to get reduce debt and invent new ways to spend.

"The debt of the country has reached a total of MVR 119 billion. This is the largest debt in the history of the country. However, we will take very strong and very fast measures to overcome these issues," he said.

The President said Maldives needs to find ways to generate revenue quickly and said that he hopes for the new terminal of Velana International Airport (VIA) to be completed soon.

"It will bring a huge boost to tourism. Many times more tourists will come to Maldives then," he said.

The new president will invent new ways to cut costs too, he said.

“The golden mountains of this land, the jewels of it, are the beautiful, fine, sandy beaches,” he said, adding that tourism is based on these resources and benefits many families at the individual, family and national levels.

"We will introduce modern innovations related to tourism. We will also provide easy housing opportunities for the service providers in the sector."

The economy needs emergency treatment and it has been revealed that the MVR 4.2 billion (USD 271.9 million) needed to cover expenditures for the rest of this year also needs to be raised yet, he added.