The Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has stated that under the foreign currency regulations, tourism service providers are expected to convert between 30 million dollars (463 million rufiyaa) and 40 million dollars (617 million rufiyaa) to banks so far. MMA said that under the foreign currency regulations, based on the number of tourists who arrived last October, the final date to convert dollars is by the 28th of this month. Therefore, the authority has requested to complete the dollar conversion before that date.
Out of the 175 resorts operating in the Maldives, 138 resorts have so far submitted their October sales report to MMA, the authority also stated. While the Foreign Currency Act came into effect on January 1st of this year, MMA had formulated related regulations starting from last October. Therefore, under these regulations, dollars need to be converted per tourist for the last three months of the previous year.
According to the regulations, resorts need to convert 500 dollars per tourist. And guesthouses need to convert 25 dollars per tourist to banks. Under the Foreign Currency Act, starting from January, the option for resorts in “Category A” in dollar conversion is to either convert 500 dollars per tourist or 20 percent of the total monthly revenue in dollars.
For guesthouses under “Category B”, the law stipulates that they must convert either 25 dollars per tourist or 20 percent of their monthly revenue in dollars.
