According to Jean Dorat André, Deputy Director of the Treasury of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, Haiti's debt is approaching 200 billion Gourdes (197.8 billion - December 2016) or almost 39% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The debt of the State to the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) represents almost 90% of the internal debt (60 billion in December 2016) and amounts to 54 billion gourdes (September 2016)

Venezuela is Haiti's largest external debt, estimated at $ 1.7 billion (September 2016), or nearly 80 per cent of Haiti's total external debt. A Venezuelan debt whose monthly amount ($ 8 million) is increasingly higher due to the devaluation of the Gourdes. In September 2016, it took 520 million Gourdes per month to pay Venezuela, in March 2017 it takes 552 million gourdes to pay the same amount, or 32 million Gourdes extra...

Faced with this decline in our national currency, which is approaching the threshold of 70 gourdes for one dollar, Jean Baden Dubois, the Governor of the BRH, has announced the injection into the foreign exchange market of 120 to 150 million dollars in the next six months, to reduce market tensions.

However, he stressed that it was clear that the BRH could not work miracles to reverse this trend and that the Government would have to win a battle to revive national production and political stability, which will allow to increase exports and foreign investment in Haiti.

Let's recall that a number of factors affect the Haitian economy: Haiti imports about $4 billion annually and exports for one billion, or $250 million exported for every billion imported; The decrease in external aid, which was reduced to $345 million in 2016, mainly due to the lower oil prices that affected the PetroCaribe Program and for political reasons, with Haiti being run for 1 year by a transitional government, that the international had refused to finance.

President Jovenel Moise and his Government will have to overcome these important challenges, among others: the fluctuation of the Gourde and the low tax revenues (less than $1 billion), which will lead to difficult and unpopular decisions, including on the increase in revenue and the broadening of the tax base, which seem inevitable.

S/ HaitiLibre