Sudan’s Customs Dollar and Staple Food Imports: Evidence from Monthly Customs Data (January 2019–December 2022)

Abstract

This paper examines how Sudan’s administratively set “customs dollar” (the exchange rate used for customs valuation and duty assessment) is associated with monthly import values of key staple foods. Using official monthly administrative data from the Sudanese Customs Authority covering January 2019 to December 2022 (48 months), we estimate descriptive trends, Pearson correlations, and baseline OLS regressions linking the customs dollar to imports of wheat, sugar, tea, coffee, lentils, and animal & vegetable products. The analysis shows a sizable and statistically significant negative association between increases in the customs dollar and imports of core staples—most prominently wheat—consistent with the interpretation of the customs dollar as an implicit import tax that raises the local-currency cost of essential goods. Results are strongest for wheat, lentils, and animal & vegetable products, while associations for sugar, tea, and coffee are not statistically significant in the baseline specification. The study discusses policy implications for revenue design under macroeconomic instability and highlights the constraints imposed by Sudan’s conflict-related data limitations, which prevent the extension of the dataset beyond December 2022.