Maldives is a cluster of small islands in the Indian Ocean. As a very small country, the Maldives relies almost entirely on tourism income. Even if the number of tourists drops for one year or the other, the economy of the Maldives will suffer. In such an environment, the corona epidemic of 2020 and the subsequent lockdown affected Maldivian tourism greatly. Due to this, the worst economic impact was on the Maldives.
Maldives made a historical mistake!
At that critical time, if India alone did not continue to provide financial support, Maldives would not have emerged today. Thanks to that, Maldives, which maintained close relations with India, started changing its face from last year. This was due to the accession of a staunch Chinese supporter, Mohammed Muisu, as the President of the Maldives. Since then, Maldives has become China’s puppet. Maldives is hostile to India because of the loans extended by China.
Maldives in severe crisis!
Part of this is because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dared to taunt Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Indians stopped traveling to the country altogether. Due to this neglect by the Indians, Maldives got into a huge economic crisis. Realizing this, the Maldivian government went to the extent of pleading with Indians to come as tourists. However, Indians are not visiting Maldives and are instead going to Sri Lanka and Lakshadweep. The Sri Lankan government had said last week that “Maldives are benefiting from India’s enmity”.
World Bank Warning!
In this case, the World Bank has warned Maldives. World Bank Director (Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka Affairs) Faris Haddad Jervos has warned that debt is strangling the Maldives. He also published a post about this on his X page yesterday. In it, “Maldives is spending at will without any income. This is going to push Maldives into the worst economic crisis and into a state where it cannot get out of debt.
Will you spend as much as you like?
Maldives needs $512 million (Rs 4,277 crore) to repay its debt in the 2024-25 financial year alone. However, due to the fact that Maldives spends liberally and gives subsidies at will, the amount of debt to be paid by Maldives will be 1.07 billion dollars (Rs. 8,939 crore) in the year 2026 alone. This will put Maldives in a huge debt crisis. The main reason for this is that Maldives tourism is gaining ground in a big way. Realizing this, it is good for the Maldivian government to wake up immediately,” said World Bank Director Faris Haddad Jervos.
