Country Reports
2024
August 30, 2024
Jamaica: Third Reviews Under the Arrangement Under the Precautionary and Liquidity Line and the Arrangement Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility-Press Release and Staff Report
Description: Supported by strong policy frameworks, Jamaica has managed to respond to recent global shocks prudently. Policies have supported the economy while still reducing public debt and inflation. Growth has been solid, the external position has strengthened, and the economic outlook remains a positive one. The latter is still exposed to risks from a global growth deceleration, tighter than expected global financial conditions, commodity price volatility, and natural disasters.
August 28, 2024
Chile: Request for an Arrangement under the Flexible Credit Line and Cancellation of the Current Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Supplement; and Statement by the Executive Director for Chile
Description: The imbalances built during the pandemic have been largely resolved shifting priorities to supporting stronger, more inclusive and greener medium-term growth. The near-term outlook has improved, primarily due to higher copper prices and prospects for increased lithium production. In this context, policies are focused on creating conditions to add dynamism to the economy such as expediting investment permits while continuing with reforms to increase tax revenue and reduce inequality. The authorities remain fully committed to maintaining very strong policies and policy frameworks.
August 26, 2024
Arab Republic of Egypt: Third Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, Monetary Policy Consultation Clause, Requests for Waivers of Nonobservance of a Performance Criterion and Applicability of Performance Criteria, and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria-Press Release; and Staff Report
Description: Policy actions taken in March as part of a strengthened program package, including unification of the exchange rate and a significant increase in the policy rate, combined with the augmentation of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement, the recent investment deal with Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company (ADQ) and the announcement of financing from the European Union, the World Bank, and other international partners, improved FX liquidity and helped restore confidence. Inflation has started to fall, though remains elevated, and there are signs that the three-and-a-half-year contraction of private sector activity is reversing.
August 13, 2024
Indonesia: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Detailed Assessment of Observance-Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision
Description: This paper presents a Detailed Assessment of Observance of the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision for the Indonesia Financial Sector Assessment Program. The Financial Services Authority (OJK) achieves good baseline supervision; building supervisory capacity and enhancing the supervisory framework will contribute to achieving higher supervision standards. It is crucial for legislation to recognize the safety and soundness of banks and the banking sector as the OJK’s primary responsibility, given its broader mandates. The OJK is encouraged to continue to examine banks’ evolving business models to identify changing risk profiles early. There is further scope for the OJK to dedicate more attention to assessing a bank’s risk culture, model governance and stress testing. There is scope for more analysis of models, model governance, model validation, and the role of the independent risk management unit to verify and validate the results. Material enhancements are needed to effectively mitigate the risks associated with related party transactions and potential sources of concentration risk. While the OJK has broad powers for corrective measures, a portfolio view of noncompliance with regulations will help address early unsafe and unsound practices.
August 8, 2024
Indonesia: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Financial System Stability Assessment
Description: This paper presents financial sector stability assessment as part of Financial Sector Assessment Program in Indonesia. The financial system appears to be broadly resilient, has strong capital and liquidity buffers but remains relatively small and dominated by banks, especially few state-owned banks. Household and corporate indebtedness and public debt are low. The increase in banks’ holdings of government bonds and loans to state-owned enterprises has tightened the sovereign-bank nexus, but banks appear to be resilient. Credit risk tends to be higher in pandemic-hit industries and highly leveraged corporations. The mission recommends strengthening loan quality recognition by banks and risk assessment of small banks. Corporate and banks foreign exchange (FX) liquidity analysis could be integrated to identify systemic FX risks which can inform the setting of micro- and macroprudential policy instruments. Strengthening independence of the supervisor and providing clarity on primary supervisory objectives is important. Indonesia’s resolution framework should be more closely aligned to the FSB Key Attributes, including regarding the bail-in tool, and should cover financial conglomerates in the framework. Authorities should not delay resolution of weak banks by providing liquidity assistance from the deposit insurance fund.
August 7, 2024
Indonesia: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Indonesia
Description: The 2024 Article IV Consultation highlights that Indonesia’s growth remains strong despite external headwinds. Inflation is firmly in the target range and the financial sector is resilient. The authorities have been pursuing an ambitious growth agenda to reach high-income status by 2045. This comprises public spending, institutional reforms, and Industrial Policy. Risks are broadly balanced. Key downside risks include persistent commodity price volatility from geopolitical shocks), an abrupt slowdown in Indonesia’s key trading partners, or adverse spillovers from tighter-for-longer global financial conditions. A slightly narrower deficit would support both growth and a more balanced policy mix. The policy rate is above neutral; with financial risks contained, accommodative macroprudential policy has supported credit growth while liquidity remains comfortable. Monetary policy should remain data-driven, based on the evolution of domestic conditions, and the exchange rate serving as a shock absorber. Bridging structural gaps will be needed to achieve higher and inclusive potential growth and reach high income status, as envisaged in the country’s national development strategy—the Golden Vision 2045.
August 7, 2024
Indonesia: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper explores structural reforms to achieve high-income status in Indonesia. Indonesia aims to achieve high-income status by 2045. Efforts are needed to strengthen the quality of Indonesia's infrastructure and logistics, its business environment and lay the ground for an infrastructure base capable of supporting stronger economic activity. Achieving inclusive growth will require to minimizing human development gaps. This includes efforts to enhance heath, reduce labor vulnerability and informality, and gender gaps, so as to level up living conditions broadly, without dividing the population between those gaining from stronger growth and those left behind. The results indicate that external sector regulation and economic openness, governance, business regulation and human development areas should be implemented in priority, as they would enhance inclusiveness and support a leveling up of living standards for the country as a whole. Moreover, these reforms have been shown to be complementary and likely to deliver stronger output effects when bundled together.
August 5, 2024
Guatemala: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper explores effects of social unrest in Guatemala. The paper estimates the effects of social unrest on Guatemala’s economy from 2001 to 2023, using the monthly Reported Social Unrest Index as a measure of social unrest. The estimations of the empirical model suggest no effects of social unrest episodes on the main external sector variables. The empirical evidence suggests little to no impact of social unrest in Guatemala. Contrary to Hadzi-Vaskov et al. (2023), the analysis of the effects of social unrest in Guatemala suggests that the effects on the real, monetary, financial, and external sectors are mild, limited, and temporary if not negligible. On the one hand, the lack of cross-country dimensionality is a limitation of our analysis, but on the other hand, exploiting monthly data allows us to disentangle unrest episode effects at higher frequencies than other papers in the literature. Overall, the results are robust to different specifications; the set of controls is extensive and includes controls for future social unrest shocks autocorrelations. The results suggest that Guatemala is resilient to unrest shocks at business-cycle frequencies, even of considerable magnitude.
August 5, 2024
Guatemala: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
Description: The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that Guatemala has continued to maintain its solid track record of macroeconomic policies, with economic growth moderating to an estimated 3.5 percent in 2023 and consumer price index inflation and inflationary pressures decelerating from a 9.9 percent peak year-on-year in February 2023 to 3.6 percent in June 2024, within the monetary policy target. The Guatemalan economy continues to show stability and soundness thanks to a legacy of prudent monetary and fiscal policies. The country's outlook remains favorable, with risks skewed to the downside. With hefty investment needs, Guatemala will need to boost revenue while bolstering the quantity and quality of spending. Higher growth and absorption of capital flows into the country requires gradual strengthening of the monetary and exchange rate policy frameworks. An inclusive and sound financial sector guided by prudential principles should further support Guatemala’s economic development efforts.