While the viral outbreak that originated from Wuhan, China has posted noticeable setbacks on global economy, the latest to face the brunt was the foreign currency exchange market in Maldives capital.
Due to the viral outbreak, with several local resorts and the entire travel and tourism industry suffering the economic blow, Maldives have been experiencing a wind down in the rotation of US Dollars.
This in turn gave rise to scarcity of currency rotation overall in the country in terms of US Dollars, resulting in local banks restraining on their usual allowances for the currency.
Thus giving rise to a hike in the exchange rates in the 'black market', which is out-of-bank transactions in exchanging foreign to local currencies or vice versa.
According to several sources, the average exchange buy rate for US Dollars have hiked between MVR16.20 to MVR16.35 per one US Dollar while the sell rate is experienced between MVR16.00 to MVR16.10 per one US Dollar.
A week earlier, the exchange buy rate for US Dollars were between MVR15.50 and MVR15.70.
Meanwhile, several registered currency exchange firms had revised their exchange rates while several of these firms have temporarily ceased currency exchanging in light of scarcity in US Dollars.
The setback on availability of foreign currency is expected to further sink in light of several travel restrictions imposed by Maldives government, prohibiting entrance for prominent European destinations which are also strong travel markets to the island nation's tourism industry.
