Policy Papers
2025
January 14, 2025
Considerations for the Comprehensive Review of Access Limits
Description: This paper provides background for an informal discussion to engage with Executive Directors, held on November 26, 2024, on the Comprehensive Review of GRA Access Limits. The General Resources Account (GRA) access limits are part of the Fund’s risk management framework. They help maintain a balance between the need to: (i) ensure that members have confidence in the availability of Fund financing; and (ii) preserve liquidity and the revolving nature of the Fund’s resources.
2024
December 23, 2024
Central Bank Stress Testing—Guidance Note
Description: The expansion of central bank balance sheets has become a critical topic in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Central banks have taken unprecedented measures to ensure price stability and financial stability, particularly when traditional policy tools were insufficient. However, this expansion has led to significant balance sheet risks, resulting in notable losses as central banks have adjusted their policies in response to rising inflation. This guidance note explores these risks and introduces a modeling framework to assess them. While essential for achieving stability, the expansion of central bank balance sheets introduces significant risks that require careful management. The proposed modeling framework is a valuable tool for assessing these risks and guiding capital policy. Exploring the relationship between balance sheet size and economic outcomes could yield beneficial insights for future central bank strategies.
December 23, 2024
Comprehensive Review of GRA Access Limits
Description:
On December 17, 2024, the IMF’s Executive Board concluded the Comprehensive Review of General Resources Account (GRA) Access Limits. The review maintained the overall annual and cumulative GRA access limits at 200 and 600 percent of current quotas, respectively, keeping them unchanged from the existing temporary limits that were set to expire at the end of 2024. These limits constitute a 38 percent increase relative to the limits set in the previous comprehensive review in 2016. The outcome of the review enables the IMF to continue meeting the evolving needs of its member countries, providing greater stability and predictability in their access to IMF resources. The Executive Board also approved adjustments to maintain access limits in nominal (Special Drawing Rights) terms when the general conditions for the effectiveness of the quota increase under the 16th General Review of Quotas are met. This approach is consistent with the Board’s decision in the recently approved Review of Charges and the Surcharge Policy and the Review of the PRGT Facilities and Financing. The Board also agreed that the next Comprehensive Review of GRA Access Limits is expected to take place on the standard five-year review cycle, with flexibility to conduct it earlier if circumstances warrant. The last comprehensive review of the Fund’s GRA access limits took place in February 2016, establishing an annual limit of 145 percent and a cumulative limit of 435 percent of quotas. These limits were adjusted temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the geopolitical conflicts in recent years. Most recently, they were temporarily increased in March 2023 and were set to expire at the end of 2024. Access limits are a key element of the Fund’s risk management framework: they provide members with confidence about the possible scale of financing that the Fund is prepared to provide in support of their adjustment efforts, while safeguarding Fund resources and preserving their revolving character. Overall GRA access limits are not ceilings but thresholds for enhanced scrutiny and safeguards through the exceptional access framework. Two staff papers informed the Executive Board’s informal engagement (November 2024) and the formal meeting (December 2024) on this review.
December 19, 2024
Gulf Cooperation Council: Pursuing Visions Amid Geopolitical Turbulence: Economic Prospects and Policy Challenges for the GCC Countries
Description: The Gulf Cooperation Council countries have successfully weathered recent turbulence in the Middle East, and their economic prospects remain favorable. Nonhydrocarbon activity has been strong amid reform implementation, although overall growth has decelerated due to cuts in oil production. The growth outlook is positive, as the envisaged easing of oil production cuts and natural gas expansion spur the recovery in the hydrocarbon sector, while the nonhydrocarbon economy continues to expand. External buffers remain comfortable despite current account balances having narrowed. Risks around the outlook are broadly balanced in the near term. More challenging medium-term risks, especially in the context of geoeconomic fragmentation and climate change, call for action on policy priorities to continue to strengthen the private sector and to diversify the economy.
December 18, 2024
Somalia—Assessment Letter for the Central Bank of Somalia
Description: This letter provides IMF staff’s assessment of macroeconomic policies in Somalia. It also discusses the authorities’ intention to reintroduce the Somali Shilling and implement a currency board arrangement, which the IMF will be supporting through extensive capacity development and the Extended Credit Facility arrangement. This assessment letter has been requested by the Central Bank of Somalia with the objective of sharing it with international partners to explain the currency reform and seek their support.
December 17, 2024
Cancellation of The 2025 Interim Surveillance Review—Proposed Decision
Description: In the 2014 Triennial Surveillance Review, the Board approved the shift from a three-year to a five-year cycle for Comprehensive Surveillance Reviews (CSRs) and requested a smaller-scale interim report after 2½-3 years to assess implementation, identify emerging pressure points, and help shape the subsequent CSR. In 2024, the Board endorsed Management’s proposal to cancel the planned 2025 Interim Surveillance Review, to focus staff’s efforts on completing the CSR by May 2026, five years after the 2021 CSR. This Board paper provides the background on this decision and explains how related risks are mitigated.
December 12, 2024
Statement by the Managing Director on the Independent Evaluation Office Report on the IMF’s Exceptional Access Policy: Executive Board Meeting December 5, 2024
Description: The evaluation assesses the IMF’s EAP from its inception in 2002 through mid-2023, the launch of the evaluation. Drawing on experience with 38 Exceptional Access (EA) arrangements during the evaluation period, the analysis spans the EAP’s objectives and design, successive reforms, and experience with implementation. It notes that there has been one comprehensive review of the EAP, in 2004, although the policy was examined and modified in 2009, 2010, and 2016.
Notes:
The IMF’s Exceptional Access Policy: Evaluation Report, Dec 2024
December 12, 2024
The Chair’s Summing Up Independent Evaluation Office—The IMF’s Exceptional Access Policy: Executive Board Meeting: Executive Board Meeting December 5, 2024
Description: Executive Directors welcomed the report of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) on the IMF’s Exceptional Access Policy (EAP), encompassing the policy’s objectives and design, successive reforms, and experience with its implementation. They recognized that the Fund has sought to find a generally good balance between rules and flexibility in applying the EAP, while reinforcing transparency and accountability and adopting adequate safeguards. Directors generally concurred with the thrust of the evaluation that the EAP provided a structured framework for higher scrutiny through the exceptional access criteria (EAC) and enhanced decision making procedures, while maintaining flexibility through room for judgment in assessing the EAC.
Notes:
The IMF’s Exceptional Access Policy: Evaluation Report, December 2024
December 6, 2024
Review of the IMF’s Communications Strategy
Description: On November 22, 2024, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) discussed a paper on the Review of the IMF’s Communication Strategy that outlines the objectives and scope of Fund communication, reviews its implementation in recent years, and proposes updates and modernization of its approach going forward. The discussion on Fund communication is in addition to the Board Review of the IMF's Transparency Policy, which sets the guidelines for the types and extent of information that the Fund may release publicly (see Press Release 24/436 for the latest review of the IMF’s Transparency Policy).
Notes: Press Release 24/436
November 25, 2024
2024 Review Of The Fund's Transparency Policy And Open Archives Policy—Background Paper 1 On Key Trends
Description: On November 15, 2024, the IMF’s Executive Board concluded the Review of the IMF’s Transparency Policy and Open Archives Policy and approved a number of reforms. As an international institution, making important documents available to the public on timely basis enhances the IMF’s credibility, accountability, and effectiveness and is critical to fulfill its mandate of promoting global economic and financial stability. While transparency at the IMF is achieved through a range of policies and practices, the Transparency Policy and the Open Archives Policy form the core elements of the IMF’s transparency framework. The Fund has come a long way since the inception of these policies in the early nineties. Most Board documents are now published, published more quickly, and under more consistent and evenhanded application of modification rules. The information available in the Fund’s archives has increased and is more easily accessible to the public. While experience suggests that these policies are effective in delivering on their objectives, the landscape in which the Fund operates has evolved since these policies were last reviewed in 2013. In a more interconnected and shock-prone world the pace with which policymakers need to make decisions has accelerated and the expectations of stakeholders on the availability and timeliness of the Fund’s analysis and policy advice has grown. Against this backdrop, the 2024 Review of the IMF’s Transparency Policy and Open Archives Policy focuses on targeted reforms to (i) support faster publication of board documents and communications of Board’s decisions; (ii) strengthen the rules and processes to modify Board documents prior to publication; and (iii) allow faster release of some documents in the Fund’s archives accessible to the public. The reforms further clarify the scope and objectives of these policies, their implementation processes, and how to strengthen knowledge sharing. The review was supported by data analysis as well as surveys and consultations with key stakeholders, including Executive Directors, country authorities, IMF missions chiefs, and civil society organizations as detailed in the three background papers accompanying this 2024 review.
Notes:
2024 Review Of The Fund’s Transparency Policy And Open Archives Policy