Training Program

Officials in Exim bank or CDB who play a direct role in lending decisions (loan officers, credit risk analysts); PBC officials engaged in designing swap arrangements with counterpart central banks in Market Access Countries (MACs); officials from NDRC, China Export and Credit Insurance Corp, CIDCA, Silk Road Fund, and related agencies engaged in lending or aid; officials in the Ministries of Commerce, Foreign Affairs, and Finance who are overseeing lending or aid to MACs; Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) officials with responsibilities related to the topics of the workshop.

Participants should have a degree in economics or finance and should have reasonably fluency in English (translation will not be available). Experience with debt sustainability analysis, or credit risk analysis would be extremely useful.

This course presents the IMF's Sovereign Risk and Debt Sustainability Framework (SRDSF) for Market Access Countries (MACs) through presentations, discussions, and
exercises. The SRDSF can guide countries' borrowing decisions to match their need for funds with their current and prospective ability to service debt, tailored to their specific circumstances. The framework can help assess a country's vulnerability to sovereign debt-related stress and identify policies to prevent potential stress from materializing in a timely manner. Where public debt related stress has already materialized, the framework can help determine whether the stress can be resolved through a fiscal adjustment and/or additional financing, or if exceptional measures including a debt restructuring are needed. The course will introduce participants to (1) the theoretical foundations of the framework, (2) the SRDSF's forward-looking analysis of debt and debt service dynamics under a baseline scenario and in the context of plausible macroeconomic and financing shocks, and (3) standardized outputs.

Participants will work on exercises and real-life case studies and analyze MAC SRDSF outputs.
While the focus of the course is not on mastering the Excel-based Sovereign Risk and Debt Sustainability Analysis (SRDSA) template, participants will be exposed to its key features in a guided manner during hands-on sessions. Participants will at times work in groups to consider scenarios and their implications for the evolution of debt vulnerabilities, and options to mitigate risks. A case study on a debt resolution will also be included.