Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has identified eight priorities for his country’s governance over the coming period. "There will be a review for the power structures at the federal and state level as well as at the level of public institutions through combining government performance efficiency and expanding participation with rationing of public expenditure," Bashir was quoted as saying in a speech on Wednesday. He added that measures will be taken to reduce external diplomatic missions to decrease expenditure and pointed out that efforts will also be exerted to stimulate production, increase exports and control imports. Since the adoption of 2018’s budget, the Sudanese economy has been facing a structural crisis, resulting in a sharp deterioration in the price of the national currency, a marked rise in prices of consumer goods and crises in fuel and bread. The measures taken by the authorities have not succeeded in alleviating them and the inflation rate had exceeded 64 percent. Bashir also vowed to exert great effort to create financial discipline in the bodies, units and government institutions and to control the movement of balances and financial accounts and make them subject to the Central Bank’s control. The Sudanese financial markets have been suffering from a severe liquidity shortage, which has led to the inability of commercial banks to meet their obligations towards their customers although the central bank denies taking measures to withdraw liquidity from the markets. Among the measures taken to control the economy in the country, the central bank ordered government institutions and agencies on the 16th of August to close their accounts in foreign and local currency in commercial banks and transfer them to the Central Bank of Sudan. Bashir said that the presidency will directly supervise the prioritization of expenditure on projects and provide the necessary needs to ensure the utilization of resources in accordance with macroeconomic priorities. He announced the adoption of a new package of measures to structure the foreign representation of the country, explaining that they are based on the principle of reducing public expenditure and foreign exchange spending, which includes reducing foreign diplomatic missions to the necessary extent in countries of strategic importance and using them to serve development efforts without burdening the treasury.