{{Madagascar needs to reform its fuel subsidy programme which does not help its poorest people, a senior International Monetary Fund official said as the lender considers more funding for the Indian Ocean island.}}<\/p>\n
Famed for its wildlife and eyed by foreign companies for its minerals, Madagascar has struggled to lure back tourists and attract oil and mining giants since a coup in 2009.<\/p>\n
The coup also prompted international donors to cut ties, leaving the economy to stagnate and poverty to deepen.<\/p>\n
The IMF resumed its relationship with Madagascar earlier this year after peaceful elections in December, and in mid June approved a $47.1 million emergency loan to help the country meet urgent balance of payment needs.<\/p>\n
IMF’s Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu said told Reuters in an interview late on Monday during a visit to the country that the government’s fuel subsidy programme – which costs 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) – was not reaching the vulnerable.<\/p>\n
“Studies show the poorest people do not benefit from the major part of the subsidy. The big chunk of the money goes to the middle and upper class,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The government needs to prepare a targeted programme to help the poorest because if there is an oil price increase the poor will suffer.”<\/p>\n
Without giving a specific forecast, Zhu said in a separate statement that Madagascar’s economic growth was expected to rise further in 2015 compared with a 3 percent forecast for this year, helped mostly by the mining sector.<\/p>\n
reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Madagascar needs to reform its fuel subsidy programme which does not help its poorest people, a senior International Monetary Fund official said as the lender considers more funding for the Indian Ocean island.}} Famed for its wildlife and eyed by foreign companies for its minerals, Madagascar has struggled to lure back tourists and attract oil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000052899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052899,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15188.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15188.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15188.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15188.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15188.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15188.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15188"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15188"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}