Resorts exchanged only MVR 68 million from the money they deposited in Maldivian banks last year, the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) said on Tuesday.
According to the central bank, resorts generated USD 4.5 billion in revenue last year, out of which only USD 2.3 billion or 52 percent was deposited in banks in Maldives.
Only three percent of the money deposited by the resorts in the banks was exchanged. That is just 1.5 percent of the total revenue generated by the resorts.
Other figures shared by the MMA show that in 2019, the year before the Covid Pandemic, resorts generated USD 3.4 billion in revenue, out of which USD 2.5 billion or 74 percent was deposited in Maldivian banks.
The revenue increased by 34 percent four years later, but bank deposits were lower. Revenue increased by USD 1.1 billion during the period, while bank deposits decreased by USD 200 million.
Even in 2019, just USD 152.5 million of the dollars deposited by resorts were exchanged in Maldivian banks. That is six percent of the deposit.
Due to the decrease in dollar deposits from resorts, banks are increasingly more dependent on MMA to raise dollars. In 2019, the MMA disbursed USD 376.6 million to banks compared to USD 480.1 million last year, which is a 27 percent increase.
Despite low dollar deposits by resorts, the foreign exchange deposits in banks increased from USD 1.2 billion to USD 1.8 billion from 2019 at the end of last year. This is an increase of 45 percent.
The root cause of the foreign exchange crisis facing the Maldives now is also the problem of taking dollars deposited in banks as cash and selling them in the black market at higher rates.
