Maldives set for first fall in GDP on record

The Maldives' economy is set to shrink in 2005 for the first time since its records began because tourist arrivals have more than halved due to December's tsunami, the island chain's foreign minister told Reuters on Tuesday.
Ahmed Shaheed said gross domestic product (GDP) -- which totalled around $700 million in 2004 -- was expected to fall 2.4 percent this year. Annual growth had averaged around 8.0 percent over the past two decades thanks to the tourism industry.
"We are in perhaps the worst position for decades," Shaheed said in an interview during a visit to neighbouring Sri Lanka.
"The forecast for economic growth this year is negative 2.4 percent. This is worse than what we forecast at the beginning of the year, which was about 1.0 percent (growth)."
It will mark the economy's first contraction since records started being kept in the mid-1970s. The Maldives' economy grew 7.0 percent in 2004.
"We are still talking about 50 percent less than last year's arrivals even with discounted rates for sales," Shaheed said.
"In pure arrival terms ... we are still at 180,000 arrivals nine months on, and last year we had a total of over 600,000," he added. "We are unlikely to make even 50 percent of arrivals even by the year's end. This is the main reason for this downturn in the economy."