Mauritius 3Q17 trade deficit rises 5%

Another sign that the economic situation of Mauritius is in very bad shape: Mauritius trade deficit increased by 5% in the third quarter from the same period last year, on the back of higher fuel imports, the statistics office said as reported by Reuters news agency.

This is happening while the MSM-ML-OPR government has lost the plot on the economic recovery, and has no other plans but to claim it is doing fine.

This is also indication that the regime of PM Pravind Jugnauth – who is also the Finance Minister – is not able to handle the bad economic situation that has hit the nation mostly due to external factors, while internally there is not enough Foreign Direct Investment or FDI that is coming into the country.

Mauritius needs a lot of investment from abroad and it also need to stimulate the local economy but there seems to be no money for that.

The deficit of 22.26 billion rupees ($662.50 million) was 2% lower than in the second quarter.

Imports rose 4% in the third quarter year-on-year to 43.37 billion rupees, driven by a 32% jump in mineral fuels and lubricants to 6.92 billion, while exports edged up 2% to 21.11 billion rupees.

The statistics office forecast the trade deficit for 2017 would be about 94 billion rupees, up from 81.6 billion in 2016.

($1 = 33.6000 Mauritius rupees)