It has been revealed that the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), Governor Ahmed Munawwar, is considering abolishing the forced dollar exchange policy and giving up the fixed dollar rate in the future.
This was announced at the Annual General Meeting of the Maldives Association for Tourism Industry (MATI) held yesterday (February 15).
During the discussion at the meeting, which was open to members of the association, the Leisure Holidays representative said that not one person present at the meeting was happy with the dollar exchange policy.
"Governments will make policies that benefit the government. Businesses will do things that benefit businesses. But I believe we need to rethink the fact that we have been forced to exchange dollars," the representative said.
However, in response to the concerns, Hussain Afeef (Champa Afeef), who was elected as the Chairman of the MATI, said he had no problem with the dollar exchange policy.
It was revealed that Munawwar wants to abolish the dollar exchange policy when another attendee questioned the purpose of the fixed dollar rate, since the parallel or black market rate of dollars has not changed.
Responding to this question, Ahmed Nazeer of Crown Company, former Secretary General of MATI, and the newly elected Vice Chairman, said that MATI met Munawwar over these concerns.
“The Governor met us and said that the dollar exchange policy would be abolished at some point and the dollar rate would be floated,” he revealed.
Salah Shihab of Voyages Maldives, the second Vice Chairman of MATI, confirmed that Munawwar had revealed this at a meeting he attended. But he said the Governor did not give a time frame for these plans.
Under the dollar exchange policy, USD 492 million was exchanged by tourism businesses and other companies earning dollars in 2025. Resorts were the biggest contributor. The government also received USD 1.2 billion in taxes from tourism businesses in 2025.
The government says the measures taken to address the foreign exchange crisis are yielding results. Earlier, President Mohamed Muizzu had promised that the dollars would be available at the official rate starting in 2027.
