Khartoum, Dec. 6 (SUNA) - The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Badr-Eddin Mahmoud has said that the value of imports reduced to 7.1 billion dollars during the current year comparing to 9.5 billion dollars in the last year whereas the exports value declined to 2.9 billion dollars in 2016 against 3.2 billion dollars in the year 2015. The minister referred, during his review to the performance of the Economic Development Sector for the year 2016 before the parliament Tuesday, to the constancy of economic growth rates at the level of the last year 4.9% within the light of the reduction of the growth rates of the international and regional economy, referring to the decrease of the rate of inflation to 15.7 % instead of 16.9 in the last year. The minister added that the deficit in the balance of trade dropped to 4.2 % in 2016 comparing to 6.3 % in 2016, expecting that surplus in the balance of payment to reach 373.6 million dollars by the end of this year instead of 38.4 million dollars in the last year. BH/BH