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A slew of measures for agriculture, manufacturing and tourism is central to government's economic diversification plan, Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo announced on Monday.

As he delivered his first budget – a $59 billion fiscal package – in Parliament, Tancoo announced measures a commodities programme, integrate AI with farming, a year-round Carnival "city", an "export academy" – and the return of EximBank as a forex lender only to exporters.

Focusing on agriculture, he said the sector, which contributed less than one per cent of GDP, was "a strategic vulnerability we must reverse."