By Mohamed Amin

KHARTOUM

The U.S. has lifted sanctions on certain bank transactions to Sudan, the Sudanese finance minister disclosed Monday.

Finance Minister Badr El-Din Mahmoud told reporters in Khartoum that the U.S. administration had informed the Sudanese government that it had lifted restrictions on making certain non-commercial bank transactions with Sudan.

The move, Mahmoud said, would serve to benefit Sudan’s humanitarian situation and business environment, both of which have been hard-hit by two decades of economic sanctions imposed by Washington.

"This decision will turn a new page… and facilitate humanitarian and individual bank transactions," the minister said.

"It will also allow implementation of the commercial transactions permitted by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control," he added.

"This in turn will lead to a reduction of the U.S. dollar’s value vis-à-vis the local currency," Mahmoud asserted.

The U.S. State Department on Saturday announced that Washington’s financial and economic sanctions on Sudan would not apply to non-commercial transactions, individual remittances and humanitarian aid deliveries.

The U.S. imposed economic, trade and financial sanctions on Sudan in 1997 after the U.S. State Department designated the country a "state sponsor of terrorism" four years earlier.