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International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The authorities’ commitment to a range of policy reforms continues to strengthen macroeconomic stability. The economy is growing, inflation is receding, donor support is increasing, the public debt is declining, and international bond spreads are at historic lows. The Final Investment Decision (FID) to develop a large offshore oil field was announced on October 1. Moody’s has upgraded Suriname’s sovereign debt rating and changed the outlook to positive.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper presents Suriname’s Seventh Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility, Requests for Modification of Performance Criteria, Waivers of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, and Financing Assurances Review. Suriname is implementing an ambitious economic reform agenda to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, while laying the foundations for strong and more inclusive growth. The program includes policies to restore fiscal and debt sustainability, protect the poor and vulnerable, upgrade the monetary and exchange rate policy framework, address banking sector vulnerabilities, and advance the anti-corruption and governance reform agenda. A tight monetary policy is supporting disinflation. Implementing the recently finalized plan for central bank recapitalization will strengthen the central bank’s operational and financial autonomy. The authorities’ demonstrated commitment to a flexible, market-determined exchange rate is supporting international reserve accumulation. The authorities should persevere with their ambitious structural reform agenda to strengthen institutions, address governance weaknesses, build climate resilience, and improve data quality.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper highlights Suriname’s Fifth Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Requests for Modification of Performance Criteria, Waivers of Nonobservance of a Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review. The authorities’ commitment to fiscal discipline and macroeconomic stabilization under the EFF-supported program is paying off. The economy is growing, inflation is on a steady downward trend, and investor confidence is improving. Near-term downside risks highlight the importance of maintaining the reform momentum to secure hard-won gains. Noteworthy progress has been made with debt restructuring. Bilateral agreements with all official creditors have been completed and the debt exchange with private external bondholders has been finalized. Domestic debts to the central bank and commercial banks have been restructured. The priority is to promptly clear domestic debt arrears. The authorities should persevere with their ambitious structural reform agenda to strengthen institutions, governance, and data quality, including with continued capacity development support from the IMF and other development partners.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper presents Suriname’s Fourth Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility, Requests for Extension of the Arrangement, Augmentation of Access, Modification of Performance Criteria, and Financing Assurances Review. Fiscal discipline and tight monetary policy are bringing about the long-awaited stability. The economy is growing, inflation is coming down, and investor confidence is returning. The authorities have completed the private debt exchange and are close to concluding agreements with all remaining creditors. The authorities’ near-term priority is to maintain fiscal prudence while protecting the most vulnerable, preserve the structural reform momentum, and avoid policy backtracking. Excellent progress has been made with debt restructuring. The debt exchange with private bondholders has been finalized with high participation rate. An agreement in principle at the technical level has been reached with Exim China and is under internal approval process for signature. Structural reforms to strengthen institutions, governance, and data quality remain key priorities with continued capacity building support by the IMF and other development partners.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
This Technical Assistance Report on Suriname discusses summary and recommendations of financial stability report (FSR). The mission focused on enhancing the FSR of the Central Bank of Suriname (CBS) whose publication has recently resumed. The mission provided several recommendations to the CBS. This covered the content and structure of the FSR and its related FSR processes, CBS’s internal and external communication, additional headcount for the Financial Stability Department, developing the financial stability analytical toolkit, coverage of the non-banking sector, and the use of data sources and statistics. The preparation of a detailed FSR production plan is critical and could facilitate improvements and bring some synergies between different teams involved in its production. This needs to include different steps and set up a firm date of publication. The CBS should further continue working toward enhancing the financial stability analytical toolkit. The mission also identified that more in-depth analysis of the insurance and pension sector is needed. The bank-like activities undertaken by non-banks should be fully assessed and monitored.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper presents Suriname’s Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility, Requests for Rephasing and Reduction of Access, Waivers of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria (PC), and Financing Assurances Review. The authorities have made concerted efforts to bring their economic recovery program back on track and stabilize the economy, foremost by restoring fiscal discipline, while expanding social assistance programs to protect the poor. They have also reached important milestones in debt restructuring negotiations, which, alongside fiscal consolidation, will support Suriname’s efforts to restore debt sustainability. The end-December 2022 quantitative performance criteria on the cumulative central government primary balance and net domestic assets were missed. Two continuous PCs and one standard continuous PC were also breached. Progress on implementing the structural agenda has moved ahead but with delays. The authorities are continuing to make progress with their structural reform agenda. Structural reforms to strengthen institutions, governance, and data quality remain key priorities with continued capacity building support by IMF and Suriname’s other development partners.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
This technical assistance report on Suriname highlights proceedings of the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) mission. The authorities have partially followed the recommendations from previous mission that took place in April 2022. While there has been significant progress in below-the-line data, little progress has been made in above-the-line data. Compilers from the Statistics Department of the Central Bank of Suriname have compiled a financial balance sheet of the Central Government (CG) to assure the integration of flows with the stocks of financial assets and liabilities. In addition, they perform regular consistency checks of data on the CG deposits and loans with the recordings in the banking system. No developments have been achieved regarding the institutional sector coverage and little progress has been done regarding the above-the-line data compilation. One of the main issues that hamper GFS data quality is that no comprehensive data on the government revenues and expenditure exist in Suriname. The mission provided an extended hands-on training for the main GFS team compiling above-the-line transactions.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
Suriname faces systemic fiscal and external imbalances as a result of many years of economic mismanagement. Usable foreign reserves were depleted and, in the absence of other sources of budget financing, fiscal deficits were monetized. Inflation has, as a result, surged and there has been a significant depreciation of the exchange rate. Public debt, at 148 percent of GDP at end-2020, is unsustainable. In addition, there are important solvency problems embedded in the domestic banking system.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This 2019 Article IV Consultation with Suriname discusses that Suriname continues to grow steadily with low inflation. However, there has been little progress in implementing urgently needed fiscal reforms, and the fiscal position is likely to continue to weaken in the coming year. The consultation focused on policies to bolster the economy in the medium term. These include fiscal measures to enhance revenues and efficiency and lower expenditures, policies to improve the monetary and financial sector supervision frameworks, and structural policies to boost potential growth. Advances have been made in developing the central bank’s monetary tools and facilities; however, more is needed to strengthen the credibility of the monetary framework. The banking sector faces important downside risks and there are gaps in the central bank’s supervisory and resolution framework. It is advised to put the public debt on a sustainable path. A significant reduction in the fiscal deficit could be achieved by implementing a value-added tax, curtailing electricity subsidies except to the poor, and improving public financial management.
Mr. Serhan Cevik
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Tianle Zhu
Monetary independence is at the core of the macroeconomic policy trilemma stating that an independent monetary policy, a fixed exchange rate and free movement of capital cannot exist at the same time. This study examines the relationship between monetary autonomy and inflation dynamics in a panel of Caribbean countries over the period 1980–2017. The empirical results show that monetary independence is a significant factor in determining inflation, even after controlling for macroeconomic developments. In other words, greater monetary policy independence, measured as a country’s ability to conduct its own monetary policy for domestic purposes independent of external monetary influences, leads to lower consumer price inflation. This relationship—robust to alternative specifications and estimation methodologies—has clear policy implications, especially for countries that maintain pegged exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar with a critical bearing on monetary autonomy.