Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer says the states usable reserve has depleted below USD 270 million amid the Covid-19 crisis that has brought the country’s economy to grinding halt.
Speaking the parliamentary committee on Economic Affairs about establishing a minimum wage in the country, Minister Ameer said that setting a minimum wage would mean giving a lot of money to foreign workers in the country and this would essentially mean exporting around USD 270 million. He clarified that even the state’s reserve does not have such an amount of funds in it.
The Minister went on to say that the Pay Commission has advised against differentiating between locals and foreigners when setting the minimum wage.
Ameer said if the minimum wage were set upon these recommendations, the amount of cash that would flow outside the country would increase. He said that a survey has shown that if the minimum wage were set at MVR 6400, USD 270 million would flow outside the country from the foreign workers holding jobs here in the Maldives.
The Minister noted that the foreign currency reserve was depleted as the tourism sector has been halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He added that the minimum wage for foreigners can be set in 2022 when the economy is expected to make a full recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The Minister said setting a minimum wage for foreign workers must be done carefully with much thought.
Ameer said that he supported setting a minimum wage for workers in the country but reiterated that this can only be achieved once the country’s economy is restored to the state it was in January of this year. He said that he believed that this would only be achieved in 2022.
The latest statistics from the Central Bank MMA show that at the end of last month the state reserve had lost USD 29.1 million leaving just over USD 201.4 million (MVR 3.1 billion). The state began the year with USD 331.3 million in its reserve.
