Country Reports
2018
July 31, 2018
Greece: 2018 Article IV Consultation and Proposal for Post-Program Monitoring-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Greece
Description: Greece has stabilized its economy and begun to grow. The authorities deserve credit for largely eliminating macroeconomic imbalances, including via a significant fiscal adjustment, and for many other reforms undertaken in recent years. Reflecting these efforts, European partners have provided significant support, most recently agreeing to a final loan disbursement under the ESM program and additional debt relief. However, as the country exits the program era in August, crisis legacies and an unfinished policy reform agenda in most areas weigh on Greece’s prospects. High public debt, weak bank balance sheets, reliance on capital controls and emergency liquidity assistance, and worrisome social indicators, including still-high unemployment, all weigh on growth and social cohesion. Fiscal adjustment has been sizable, but has relied on distortionary high tax rates on still-narrow bases and growth-detrimental discretionary spending cuts, and efforts to bring down tax and spending arrears have been met with limited success. Social spending is better targeted, but many social needs remain unmet and the risk of poverty remains high. Bank credit continues to shrink. Structural reform efforts to address obstacles to growth and competitiveness—while significant—have fallen wellshort of what is needed, and competitiveness indicators remain below the Euro Area average. Notably, the planned reversal of reforms to the collective bargaining framework risks undoing previous gains in competitiveness.
July 30, 2018
South Africa: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for South Africa
Description: Reflecting slow progress on reforms, weakened governance, and elevated policy uncertainty, growth remains subdued. With the economy unable to create enough jobs, the quest for inclusive growth has been elusive, making South Africa one of the most unequal societies. Growing government spending has led to a doubling of public debt in the last decade. Credible monetary policy has kept inflation expectations anchored, albeit at near the top of the target band. The current account deficit remains financed by potentially volatile portfolio inflows. The new administration’s immediate priority has focused on improving governance and restoring confidence.
July 30, 2018
South Africa: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper analyzes impact of debt on growth in South Africa. A permanent increase of four percentage points of gross domestic product (GDP) in national government expenditure underlies the doubling of public debt in the last decade. The wage bill accounted for most of the expenditure increase (64 percent), followed by the interest bill (23 percent). The debt expansion, thus, financed a countercyclical fiscal policy centered on current spending, which likely shielded the impact of subdued economic activity, but had limited permanent effects on growth. Had resources devoted to wage increases and debt service payments been invested in more productive outlays, such as highly productive capital expenditure and reforms in key network industries, the growth gains would have been higher. The spending increase that drove the large debt accumulation helped smooth the impact of the global financial crisis, but likely did not have a material impact on growth.
July 27, 2018
Singapore: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Singapore
Description: Singapore’s economy is on a strong cyclical upswing. Economic growth has recovered to a three-year high, led by externally-oriented sectors that benefitted from the synchronized global expansion. Economic momentum is becoming more broad-based, helping to reduce the labor market slack. Growth is expected at or above the potential rate in the near term, increasingly supported by domestic demand. Inflation is subdued but expected to rise modestly. The current account surplus, as a share of GDP, has remained large. Risks to the near-term outlook are broadly balanced and come mainly from external sources. Over the medium term, the structural transformation aimed to prepare Singapore for challenges from technological changes globally and population aging at home should help support higher productivity.
July 26, 2018
Slovak Republic: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper assesses Slovakia’s household and private sector indebtedness against macroeconomic fundamentals, identifies key vulnerabilities from rapid household credit growth, assesses policy responses to date, and presents further policy options. Strong private sector credit growth has persisted for over a decade and resulted in household debt that is high relative to peers. Credit is now growing in riskier segments. Housing prices have also started to reflect pressures from strong credit growth. The paper describes assessments of household and private sector debt levels relative to fundamentals. It also describes the policy response to date and assesses its effectiveness. Econometric analysis suggests that household indebtedness is growing at a faster pace than implied by economic fundamentals. The credit cycle seems to have reached its post-crisis high. The credit cyclogram, compiled by the National Bank of Slovakia, is an aggregation of a set of core and supplementary variables evaluated against distributions of their own historical values to disentangle factors cyclical credit growth.
July 26, 2018
France: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for France
Description: In a favorable global conjuncture, France has benefitted from a broad-based recovery last year, with robust growth and improving labor market trends, which have led to a decline in the fiscal deficit below 3 percent of GDP last year. But structural challenges persist, with still high unemployment, weak competitiveness, and high private and public debt burdens, which are hampering economic performance.
July 26, 2018
France: Selected Issues
Description: This Selected Issues paper focuses on various aspects of corporate debt in France. The increase in debt has financed real investments, as well as acquisition of financial assets and extension of intercompany loans. The increase in debt (and its level) appears less worrisome when debt is consolidated among nonfinancial corporations. Despite the increase in the stock of debt, debt service has increased moderately. A cross-country regression analysis reveals that French publicly listed firms are on average not more indebted and have not increased their debt more than peers in other countries, after controlling for firm and sector characteristics as well as common time effects. However, the increase in debt is concentrated among large firms with sizeable leverage in a few industries, raising questions about these firms’ ability to service this debt when interest rates rise. Stress test scenarios of a large and sudden increase in interest rates suggest that corporate debt at risk could be significant at a macroeconomic level, but that cash buffers would mitigate the impact of the shock on debt service.
July 26, 2018
Slovak Republic: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report and Statement by the Executive Director for the Slovak Republic
Description: The Slovak economy is enjoying consecutive years of favorable performance marked by robust real per capita GDP growth, record-low unemployment and sustained improvement in fiscal balances. However, shortages of skilled labor, and gaps in education and institutional quality pose risks to an already declining productivity growth. A decade-long double-digit mortgage lending growth has more than doubled household indebtedness relative to GDP, posing financial stability risks.
July 26, 2018
People’s Republic of China: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Statement and Statement by the Executive Director for the People's Republic of China
Description: China is at an historic juncture. After decades of high-speed growth, the authorities are now focusing on high-quality growth. Whether and how this shift is carried through will determine China’s development path for decades to come. Recent strong growth momentum and significant financial de-risking progress reduce the probability of a near-term abrupt adjustment. Rebalancing accelerated in some dimensions, especially as the current account surplus continued to fall and growth became less dependent on credit, but progress slowed in many other dimensions as exports drove the growth pick up, rather than consumption. And while credit growth has slowed, it remains excessive.
July 25, 2018
Peru: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Peru
Description: Peru has been one of the top performers in Latin America since the turn of the century: robust growth has helped close the income gap with the largest regional economies and reduce poverty significantly. Last year, however, growth was subpar and the poverty ratio increased. While high commodity prices are an important tailwind, the economy is facing domestic headwinds. The Odebrecht case led to the resignation of President Kuczynski, and the new cabinet has moved quickly to implement various measures and request special legislative powers from Congress. The authorities have also been facing the challenge of rebuilding infrastructure following the extreme weather caused by El Niño in 2017.