Country Reports
2019
February 21, 2019
Australia: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Detailed Assessment of Observance-Basel Core Principles For Effective Banking Supervision
Description: This Detailed Assessment of Observance report specifies Base Core Principles (BCP) for effective banking supervision in Australia. An assessment of the effectiveness of banking supervision requires a review of the legal framework, and a detailed examination of the policies and practices of the institution(s) responsible for banking regulation and supervision. In line with the BCP methodology, the assessment focused on banking supervision and regulation in Australia and did not cover the specificities of regulation and supervision of other financial institutions. The assessment has made use of five categories to determine compliance: compliant; largely compliant, materially noncompliant, noncompliant, and non-applicable. The report insists that Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) should put more focus on assessing the various components of firms’ Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process and other firm-wide stress testing practices. A periodic more comprehensive assessment of banks’ risk management and governance frameworks will further enhance APRA’s supervisory approach.
February 19, 2019
Republic of Slovenia: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper argues that revenue-neutral tax rebalancing would help Slovenia address long-term fiscal and growth challenges. The present tax-benefit system is supportive of distributional fairness in Slovenia; however, it is argued that tax reform can help bring stronger employment and productivity growth and enhanced resilience to the challenges of population ageing. The paper lays out the case for tax reform in view of long-run fiscal and growth challenges and it also reviews the current tax system and its weaknesses in comparison with international best practices. The paper also sets out tax reform options and uses a model simulation to illustrate the medium- to long-term fiscal and growth impact. The analysis on the tax rebalancing impact suggests that it can permanently and significantly increase potential output in Slovenia. The simulations indicate that a revenue-neutral tax rebalancing has positive fiscal and growth benefits over time.
February 18, 2019
Republic of Slovenia: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Republic of Slovenia
Description: This Article IV Consultation highlights that the continued structural reforms are key to ensure long-term prosperity, while strengthening the economy’s resilience to shocks. Effective implementation of the recently enacted reforms of vocational training, apprenticeship, and adult education would help address skill shortages, support employment of younger and older people, and boost productivity growth. Macro-financial legacy issues remain in bank and corporate balance sheets, including small and medium enterprises’ nonperforming loans. Structural challenges persist with low productivity growth, skills shortages, high tax wedge, heavy regulatory system, and extensive presence of state-owned enterprises. Policies should focus on fiscal and structural reforms to rebuild fiscal buffers and increase productivity. Slovenia’s external position in 2018 is assessed as substantially stronger than suggested by fundamentals and desirable policies; however the current account is expected to revert toward its norm in the medium term. Continued structural reforms are key to ensure long-term prosperity, while strengthening the economy’s resilience to shocks. Effective implementation of the recently enacted reforms of vocational training, apprenticeship, and adult education would help address skill shortages, support employment of younger and older people, and boost productivity growth.
February 17, 2019
Nepal: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nepal
Description: This Article IV Consultation highlights that following a prolonged period of tepid growth, economic activity in Nepal has picked up, reflecting cyclical factors and some structural improvements, especially in electricity supply. Discussions focused on policies needed to stem rising balance of payments pressures, safeguard financial stability, and structural reforms to ensure high, sustainable and inclusive growth. Continued improvements in revenue performance are seen to be important to maintain a strong fiscal position and meet capital spending needs. The IMF staff welcomed the authorities’ efforts to increase domestic revenue mobilization. The authorities broadly agreed with the IMF staff’s assessment and fiscal policy advice. The authorities noted that the transition to fiscal federalism and the pickup of reconstruction. Progress has been made with putting in place a fiscal federal framework but more needs to be done to ensure sustainability, make budgets more realistic and spending more efficient, and build implementation capacity.
February 17, 2019
Nepal: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper examines the degree to which inflation co-moves between India and a panel of countries in Asia. The paper shows that the considerable co-movement in headline inflation rates between India and Nepal is driven almost exclusively by food-inflation co-movement. By contrast, the role for inflation spillovers emanating from India in driving non-food inflation in Nepal appears limited. The implication is that Nepal should rely on domestic monetary policy rather than stable inflation in India to achieve stable domestic inflation. The main takeaway from the results is that food inflation co-movement between India and other countries is higher in cases where the co-movement in rainfall deviations from seasonal norms is highest. Since core inflation co-movement is weak, idiosyncratic domestic factors such as economic slack, exchange-rate movements, and differing degrees of passthrough from food- and energy-price shocks play an important role. This finding is critically important for monetary policy, especially since domestic policy is primarily effective only in controlling core inflation. Thus, domestic monetary policy needs to be calibrated to domestic inflationary pressures—Nepal cannot necessarily rely on stable inflation in India to achieve stable domestic inflation.
February 15, 2019
Republic of Fiji: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release and Staff Report
Description: This Article IV Consultation highlights that the economy is recovering well from several natural disasters, supported by accommodative fiscal and monetary policies. Growth performance picked up in recent years with improved political stability, though average growth rates were still lower than in other emerging and developing countries. Fiscal buffers have been used and external conditions, including oil prices and growth prospects of main trading partners, are becoming less favorable. Improving the overall business environment and governance is expected to raise potential growth by mobilizing private investment, enhancing productivity, and diversifying the economy. An improvement in the overall business environment is essential to achieve the ambitious growth targets laid out in the National Development Plan. Streamlining procedures to do business, accelerating the activation of the credit reporting agency, and reducing tax compliance costs has been recommended.
February 12, 2019
The Kingdom of the Netherlands—Netherlands: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for The Kingdom of the Netherlands—Netherlands
Description: This Article IV Consultation highlights that the Dutch economy has grown faster than the euro area average over the past few years reflecting recovering consumption and investment, and strong net exports. Progress with tackling long-standing imbalances in the households and corporate sectors, and thus external imbalances, has lagged. Households remain highly leveraged and their consumption constrained by a stagnating disposable income. In the corporate sector, dominated by large multinational corporations, investment is low but savings are high, and developments are diverging with domestic small and medium enterprises relatively stagnant. Strong fiscal performance in recent years has boosted buffers that can now be used to reduce distortions and strengthen potential growth. The report recommends that it is important to harmonize tax benefits and social security contributions for different types of employment to reduce labor market duality while increasing overall labor market flexibility. Using fiscal space to address household and corporate imbalances is desirable and is unlikely to jeopardize long-term fiscal sustainability.
February 12, 2019
The Kingdom of the Netherlands—Netherlands: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues papers provide details of the sources and uses of the non-financial corporation saving and highlights the role of multinational corporations (MNCs). The paper also discusses the implications to the external sector assessment and policy recommendations. The large Dutch international investment position reflects its status as an international corporate center. The study shows that large trade surpluses and small primary income balances are consistent with the dominance of MNCs in the Netherlands’ external positions. Separating MNCs’ activities from the Dutch current account for the external sector assessment is expected to help identify underlying policy distortions. Separating MNCs’ activities would help identify imbalances of other economic sectors. The small and medium enterprises are stagnant and remain financially constrained. Small household net saving hides the fact that households are still highly leveraged, and their consumption constrained by a stagnating disposable income. Therefore, improving statistics and separating MNCs’ activities from both internal and external accounts would help identify domestic policy distortions and address imbalances effectively.
February 12, 2019
Republic of Croatia: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Republic of Croatia
Description: This Article IV Consultation highlights that the economic expansion continues, driven primarily by private consumption and exports of goods and services. Discussions primarily focused on increasing the economy’s flexibility and resilience. Fiscal performance has been strong, however, the materialization of contingent liabilities from government guarantees is likely to reduce the overall surplus. Low public and private investment, and continued emigration appear to weigh on medium-term growth prospects. Downside risks in the near-term stem could be due to possible changes in regional or global economic and financial conditions, and the further realization of contingent liabilities. The IMF staff advocated for a moderately faster fiscal adjustment. The report recommends accelerating the pace of debt reduction that would build fiscal space and help reduce downside risks. The Central Bank may need to address potentially tighter external conditions while continuing with strong bank supervision and macroprudential policies. Additional measures to prevent excessive household borrowing could be considered if needed.
February 12, 2019
Republic of Croatia: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper explores how intersectoral vulnerabilities and risks have shifted over 2001–17, and especially after the Global Financial Crisis. It analyzes financial positions at the sectoral levels deposit taking institutions and non-financial corporations, households, the public sector, and the Croatian National Bank by disaggregating them into instruments, currencies, and maturities. The paper has employed balance sheet analysis (BSA) to gauge cross-sectional exposures and risks. The BSA approach is a method to study an economy as a system of interlinked sectoral balance sheets. The policies to reduce the remaining vulnerabilities have also been discussed in the paper. Standard macroeconomic indicators demonstrate that Croatia’s overall external vulnerabilities have declined since 2010. However, the balance sheet matrix shows little improvement in reduction of important cross-sectoral dependencies and liabilities to the rest of the world over 2010–17. One of the recommendations made is to encourage deleveraging through specific policy options and strategies.