Western Hemisphere > Belize

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Hippolyte W. Balima
,
Deirdre Daly
, and
Mr. Boileau Loko
Domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) is essential for low-income and emerging economies to sustainably finance their development needs and has received increasing attention in recent years. Studies have centered on structural factors such as the size and the structure of the economy, and the quality of institutions, notably to account for weaknesses in revenue administrations. Nevertheless, DRM can take time and carry political costs. Raising more financing through donors or private investors may be an easier and more politically palatable way for countries to meet spending needs. Using an impact assessment methodology and panel regressions over a sample of 72 developing countries, we found no evidence that access to bond markets or external commercial loans undermines the countries’ efforts to collect tax revenue. On the contrary, we found that access to markets has a positive impact on domestic revenue mobilization. Plausible explanations are that private financing must be repaid, and strong macroeconomic fundamentals are key for maintaining market access. We have also found that macroeconomic stability and the strength of institutions do matter for domestic revenue mobilization.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
Cybersecurity risk is embedded in the CBB’s supervisory framework, but additional enhancements are needed to formalize guidance and develop more intensive supervisory practices. Supervisory expectations on cybersecurity are presented in an informal guidance note, which should be formalized into regulation to ensure enforceability; and an IT/cybersecurity supervisory manual should be developed to promote effective and consistent practices. With its principle-based guidance note, the CBB highlights its priorities in strengthening the cybersecurity posture of Belizean financial institutions. The principles are an appropriate interpretation of international best practices on incident prevention, detection, response, and recovery measures, adapted to the cyber maturity of the Belizean financial institutions, and can be used as a foundation for the formalized guidelines. The manual could emphasize the review of cybersecurity strategies, policies, and responsibility specifications and should address obtaining assurance on the effectiveness of the financial institutions’ processes for cyber risk identification, assessment, and mitigation.
Mr. Jochen R. Andritzky
and
Julian Schumacher
Sovereign debt restructurings are perceived as inflicting large losses to bondholders. However, many bonds feature high coupons and often exhibit strong post-crisis recoveries. To account for these aspects, we analyze the long-term returns of sovereign bonds during 32 crises since 1998, taking into account losses from bond exchanges as well as profits before and after such events. We show that the average excess return over risk-free rates in crises with debt restructuring is not significantly lower than the return on bonds in crises without restructuring. Returns differ considerably depending on the investment strategy: Investors who sell during crises fare much worse than buy-and-hold investors or investors entering the market upon signs of distress
Mr. Tamon Asonuma
,
Mr. Michael G. Papaioannou
,
Eriko Togo
, and
Mr. Bert van Selm
This paper examines the causes, processes, and outcomes of Belize’s 2016–17 sovereign debt restructuring—its third episode in last 10 years. As was the case in the earlier two restructurings, in 2006–07 and in 2012–13, the 2016–17 debt restructuring was executed through collaborative engagement with creditors outside an IMF-supported program. While providing liquidity relief and partially addressing long-term debt sustainability concerns, the restructuring will need to be underpinned by ambitious fiscal consolidation and growth-enhancing structural reforms to secure durable gains.
Mr. Tamon Asonuma
,
Gerardo Peraza
,
Kristine Vitola
, and
Mr. Takahiro Tsuda
This paper examines the causes, processes, and outcomes of the two Belize sovereign debt restructurings in 2006–07 and in 2012–13 that occurred outside of an IMF-supported program. It finds that the motivation for the two debt restructurings differed, as the former was driven by external liquidity concerns while the latter was motivated by a substantial increase in the coupon rates and future fiscal solvency concerns. Despite differential treatment between residents and non-residents, both 2006–07 and 2012–13 debt exchanges were executed through collaborative engagement, due in part to the existence of a broad-based creditor committee and the authorities’ effective communication strategy. However, while providing temporary liquidity relief, neither of the debt restructurings properly addressed long-term debt sustainability concerns. Going forward, the success of the 2012–13 debt restructuring will still depend on the country’s ability to strengthen fiscal efforts and public debt management framework.
International Monetary Fund
his paper reviews the recent application of the Fund’s policies and practices on sovereign debt restructuring. Specifically, the paper: • recaps in a holistic manner the various policies and practices that underpin the Fund's legal and policy framework for sovereign debt restructuring, including on debt sustainability, market access, financing assurances, arrears, private sector involvement (PSI), official sector involvement (OSI), and the use of legal instruments; • reviews how this framework has been applied in the context of Fund-supported programs and highlights the issues that have emerged in light of recent experience with debt restructuring; and • describes recent initiatives in various fora aimed at promoting orderly sovereign debt restructuring, highlighting differences with the Fund’s existing framework. Based on this stocktaking, the paper identifies issues that could be considered in further depth in follow-up work by staff to assess whether the Fund’s framework for debt restructuring should be adapted: • first, debt restructurings have often been too little and too late, thus failing to re-establish debt sustainability and market access in a durable way. Overcoming these problems likely requires action on several fronts, including (i) increased rigor and transparency of debt sustainability and market access assessments, (ii) exploring ways to prevent the use of Fund resources to simply bail out private creditors, and (iii) measures to alleviate the costs associated with restructurings; • second, while creditor participation has been adequate in recent restructurings, the current contractual, market-based approach to debt restructuring is becoming less potent in overcoming collective action problems, especially in pre-default cases. In response, consideration could be given to making the contractual framework more effective, including through the introduction of more robust aggregation clauses into international sovereign bonds bearing in mind the inter-creditor equity issues that such an approach may raise. The Fund may also consider ways to condition use of its financing more tightly to the resolution of collective action problems; • third, the growing role and changing composition of official lending call for a clearer framework for official sector involvement, especially with regard to non-Paris Club creditors, for which the modality for securing program financing commitments could be tightened; and • fourth, although the collaborative, good-faith approach to resolving external private arrears embedded in the lending into arrears (LIA) policy remains the most promising way to regain market access post-default, a review of the effectiveness of the LIA policy is in order in light of recent experience and the increased complexity of the creditor base. Consideration could also be given to extending the LIA policy to official arrears.
International Monetary Fund
Belize should reduce debt ratios to comfortable levels for smooth market access, and reduce liquidity risks by stabilizing debt service. Streamlined management of the oil fund should be considered. Fiscal measures should compensate for the loss of oil revenues in the budget and avoid new borrowing. This note explores alternative measures of reserves adequacy and concludes that a reserves target of three months of imports is a reasonable benchmark. Reforms enabling more effective liquidity management involve removing the ceilings and moving to market-based interest rates.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
En mettant l’accent sur le travail du FMI et sur les grandes questions macroéconomiques et financières internationales, le Bulletin du FMI présente une analyse des développements nationaux, régionaux et mondiaux, des informations sur le travail, les politiques, les réformes et les activités d'assistance technique du FMI, les conclusions d'études de calibre mondial, des données essentielles qui ne sont souvent pas disponibles ailleurs, ainsi que des rapports sur les discussions économiques et financières au sein du FMI et ailleurs. Publié douze fois par an, ce bulletin de seize pages s'adresse à un large public : dirigeants, analystes, chercheurs, étudiants et journalistes. Disponible en anglais, français et espagnol.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
El Boletín del FMI aborda de manera específica el trabajo del FMI y los grandes temas macroeconómicos y financieros internacionales y ofrece análisis sobre la evolución en los distintos países y regiones y en el mundo; información sobre las operaciones, políticas, reformas y asistencia técnica del FMI; síntesis de las principales investigaciones económicas mundiales; datos fundamentales que no suelen estar disponibles en otras fuentes, e informes sobre debates económicos y financieros que tienen lugar dentro y fuera del FMI. Este boletín de 16 páginas, publicado 12 veces al año, está orientado a una vasta audiencia, que incluye autoridades de política económica, analistas, profesionales del mundo académico y de los medios de difusión y estudiantes. Disponible en inglés, español y francés.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
IMF chief economist Simon Johnson, IEO report, Sub-Saharan Africa, Tom Bernes, Joanne Salop, exchange rate analysis, CGER, Jonathan Ostry, Belize, Malan report, IMF-World Bank cooperation, Bruegel, IMF goverance, Colin Bradford, global imbalances.