DÍLI, 05 october, 2020 (TATOLI) – The Government of Timor-Leste expects the country’s economy to grow 3.9% in 2021 as the results from the recovery investment from the private sectors and the households consuming.
The Vice-Minister of Finance Sara Lobo Brites highlighted the budget as a machine to promote country economic growth.
Ms Brites added, that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 6% drop on 2020 due to the health crisis caused by the pandemic, the contraction of public expenses and the delay in approving the budget.
“The real GDP in 2021 will increase to 3.9% as the results from the from the private sectors and the households consuming,” Vice Minister Sara Lobo Brites explained at the Panorama budget event held at Novo Tourism Hotel.
she said the Inflation, on the other hand, is expected to remain low and stable, at 0.7% in 2020, and 2.1% in 2021, since it is contributed to the increasing in competitive price as the inflation will be less than the provision of the middle inflation of the region.
It is recalled that public investment resulted, between 2008 and 2018, in non-oil economic growth set at an average of 4.7% per year.
According to the OGE’s proposal for 2021, this policy aimed to establish the necessary foundations for long-term sustainable development led by the private sector.
“Preliminary projections of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] in 2019 indicated that GDP was positive, with the growth of around 2.0%, recovering from two previous years of contraction”, the proposal states.
The Governor of the Central Bank of Timor-Leste (BCTL), Abraão de Vasconcelos, had previously revealed that the country’s economy registered a 6% drop.
“The reason why the economy recorded a drop of around 6% is since economic activity has not returned to normal, causing the aggregate supply to drop by around 11% and causing a 14% decrease in aggregate supply to the public sector and 7% relative to the domestic offer”, said the BCTL official, in the National Parliament.
The governor added that there was a fall of approximately 18% in the export and import sectors when calculating the balance of the external account deficit. The same is true of non-oil economic growth, which fell by 6%.
Journalist: Maria Auxiliadora
Editor: Zezito Silva/Nick Kettle
