# News _The newest stories, newest first._ - [Ramhan Island keeps foreign money in Abu Dhabi for years, not nights. Ras Malé can do the same](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/ramhan-island-ras-male-two-markets-diversification) — 2026-10-28, Economy & Markets — Ramhan Island shows how property keeps foreign money in a country for years: buyers pay before homes are built, owners and tenants spend all year, and every resale pays again. In 2026 Abu Dhabi property grew as hotels fell. Ras Malé could give the Maldives that second engine. - [Sixty years of friendship, US$13 million of trade: can the Islamabad agreements change Maldives-Pakistan ties?](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/maldives-pakistan-state-visit-trade-history-20-agreements-2026) — 2026-10-23, Foreign Affairs — President Muizzu’s October 2026 state visit to Pakistan ended with 20 agreements and a pledge to lift trade from US$13 million to US$200 million in two years. Using 35 years of UN trade data and Pakistan’s English and Urdu press, GMM asks why trade stayed small and what it would take to grow. - [Rebuilding a city that cannot stop: Malé's flooded streets and the cost of putting a nation on two square kilometres](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/male-rebuilding-city-cannot-stop-flooding-concentration) — 2026-10-23, Business & Infrastructure — A 90 mm storm flooded Malé on 21 October 2026. GMM's analysis of 51 years of rain, the tide gauge and the drains finds an island that has lost the capacity to cope, and sets out how to rebuild it without stopping the city. - [Maldives secures a rollover of its US$311 million rupee swap with India](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/india-inr-30-billion-swap-rollover-maldives-reserves) — 2026-10-17, Economy & Markets — India has approved a rollover of the INR 30 billion swap the Maldives drew in April. Worth about US$311 million, it is close to twice the country's usable reserves. What the decision relieves, what it does not, and the path of Indian support ahead. - [Operation Economic Outcast: how Washington is tightening the dollar system, and what it means for the Maldives](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/operation-economic-outcast-dollar-system-maldives-explainer) — 2026-10-16, Foreign Affairs — Operation Economic Outcast has moved US sanctions from named targets to whole sectors, from principals to service providers, and onto the world’s correspondent banks. How the dollar reaches the Maldives, what the new rules are, and what they mean for a small economy that lives on the dollar - [The passport ban and Rasmalé: how the law holds its ground](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/muththalib-passport-ban-rasmale-how-law-holds-its-ground) — 2026-10-13, Government & Parliament — Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development Dr Abdulla Muththalib answers the Palestine-related concerns raised about Rasmalé: what Zionist settlement has historically required, what the April 2025 Israeli passport ban already does, and the protections proposed for the sale. - [The Maldives earns its first-ever credit upgrade: how two years of reform turned the country's finances around](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/moodys-first-upgrade-maldives-structural-reform) — 2026-10-09, Economy & Markets — Moody's raised the Maldives to Caa1 on 8 October 2026, its first upgrade since it began rating the country in 2016. Here is what the upgrade means, the six reforms since 2024 that earned it, and the numbers that show each one working. - [Why a rolling lease strengthens the Ras Malé development instead of weakening it](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/rolling-lease-strengthens-ras-male-development) — 2026-09-23, Business & Infrastructure — Critics see the Ras Malé rolling lease as a risk. We argue it supports development: it stops leases losing value, helps pay for infrastructure and gives the State income from every sale, while the land is never sold. We list the conditions it must meet. - [Rasmalé: the questions are fair, and here are the answers](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/rasmale-the-questions-are-fair-and-here-are-the-answers) — 2026-09-23, Business & Infrastructure — In an op-ed, Housing Minister Abdulla Muththalib answers critics of the Rasmalé agreement with Eagle Hills: no upfront cheque but TGST, a 10 percent revenue share and 4 percent on property sales, all receipts held in escrow in the Maldives; homes in Hulhumalé funded up front. - [The bullet, the leak and the printing press: three systemic failures behind the dollar shortage](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/systemic-failures-dollar-shortage-cleanup) — 2026-08-21, Economy & Markets — Maldivian public finance carried three structural weaknesses into the 2020s: debt refinanced as single bullet maturities, tourism dollars with no obligation to enter the domestic banking system, and a deficit that could be financed by creating money. All three were left intact through 2018–2023. - [GST bill would tax foreign tourism sales from October. MIRA has not shown how it will collect them](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/gst-eighth-amendment-destination-principle-offshore-tourism-margins) — 2026-08-20, Economy & Markets — A Majlis bill would charge 17 per cent tourism GST on what is described as the margin foreign operators and booking platforms earn on Maldivian holidays — a projected MVR 1.6 billion a year. The principle is orthodox. Neither the arithmetic nor the collection machinery has been shown. - [Muizzu's SAARC call puts a 1.94-billion-person bloc back on the agenda](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/muizzu-s-saarc-call-puts-a-1-94-billion-person-bloc-back-on-the-agenda) — 2026-07-28, Foreign Affairs — President Muizzu has called for SAARC's revival and offered the Maldives' good offices. Nine years without a summit have left South Asia the world's least integrated region — under 5% intra-regional trade across a bloc of 1.94 billion people. - [Revenue rose, but recorded expenditure rose much faster](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/revenue-rose-but-recorded-expenditure-rose-much-faster) — 2026-07-28, Economy & Markets — The Ministry recorded stronger revenue in the first half of 2026, but an even larger rise in expenditure. Subsidies and grants drove much of the increase, while the primary surplus narrowed sharply. - [Maldives visitor survey shows strong visitor loyalty; spending chapter remains incomplete](https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news/maldives-visitor-survey-shows-strong-visitor-loyalty-spending-chapter-remains-incomplete) — 2026-07-23, Government & Parliament — A government survey of 3,047 departing tourists finds strong destination loyalty and unusually high satisfaction. Its short, single-airport sampling window and an incomplete spending chapter, however, mean it establishes less about the economic value of tourism than its headline findings suggest. --- Canonical URL: https://www.goodmorningmaldives.com/news Source: Good Morning Maldives. Cite the canonical URL when quoting.