DUBAI: Kuwait’s prime minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah called for understanding on ‘critical circumstances’ that required the country to cut spending to address the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on economy, state news agency KUNA reported.
Al-Sabah, who earlier chaired an online cabinet briefing on a government stimulus package, added that authorities should follow all the rules and present “serious cooperation in order to overcome this phase with the least damage possible.”
The stimulus package includes a reduction in its discount rate and an offer of up to $811,000 in soft loans for owners of small to medium-sized enterprises and payable in four years.
A delay in helping companies and SMEs would negatively impact the country’s economy to the extent that they may go bankrupt, Kuwait’s central bank chief Dr. Mohammad Al-Hashel said.
The Kuwaiti cabinet has also approved the Ministry of Finance’s proposals to not raise budgets of independent public authorities, institutions and funds for five years, and also lowering their budgets by 20 percent for the years 2020 and 2021.
Kuwait calls for understanding on spending cuts amid coronavirus pandemic
https://arab.news/csxu5
Kuwait calls for understanding on spending cuts amid coronavirus pandemic
- Kuwait's stimulus package includes a reduction in its discount rate and an offer of up to $811,000 in soft loans for owners of SMEs
Somali president visits city claimed by breakaway region
MOGADISHU: Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Friday visited a provincial capital claimed by the breakaway region of Somaliland -- the first visit there by a sitting president in over 40 years.
The visit to Las Anod, the administrative capital of the Sool region, comes amid heightened diplomatic tensions in the Horn of Africa after Israel officially recognised Somaliland, drawing strong opposition from Mogadishu.
Mohamud was attending the inauguration of the president of the newly created Northeast State, which became Somalia's sixth federal state in August.
It was the first visit by a Somali president since 1984.
Somalia is a federation of semi-autonomous states, some of which have fraught relations with the central government in Mogadishu.
The Northeast State comprises the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, all territories Somaliland claims as integral to its borders.
Somaliland had controlled Las Anod since 2007 but was forced to withdraw in 2023 after violent clashes with Somali forces and pro-Mogadishu militias left scores dead.
Mohamud's visit "is a symbol of strengthening the unity and efforts of the federal government to enforce the territorial unity of the Somali country and its people", the Somali president's office said.
