Asia and Pacific > Maldives

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Ozlem Aydin
,
Claude P Wendling
,
Bryn Welham
,
Eivind Tandberg
, and
Juana Aristizabal
An IMF Team assessed the green public financial management (PFM) practices, drawing on the IMF’s Green PFM framework, and conducted a Climate Module of the Public Investment Management Assessment (C-PIMA) in the Maldives. It identified strengths related to the recent public investment management (PIM) reforms, but also several remaining priorities along the budget and investment cycle in the Maldives that affect the efficiency, and its capacity to respond to climate change-related challenges. The mission team makes six priority recommendations in integrating climate change considerations in PFM and PIM practices, prioritized based on the country's capacity, financial resources, and ongoing reform initiatives.
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
The 2024 Article IV Consultation highlights that despite headwinds from the war in Ukraine, the Maldives’ economic recovery from coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has shown resilience. Real gross domestic product growth is estimated to moderate to 4.4 percent in 2023, before gradually rising to 5.2 percent in 2024. The discussions focus on comprehensive policy reforms to address fiscal vulnerabilities, stem rising balance of payments pressures, and safeguard financial stability, while supporting sustained strong and inclusive growth. Front-loaded fiscal adjustments, accompanied by tighter monetary and macroprudential policies, are urgently needed to reduce vulnerabilities and restore sustainability of public finances. Adopting macroprudential policies will help mitigate systemic risks stemming from sovereign-bank nexus. Financial sector oversight and crisis management should be further enhanced. Strengthening institutions to support climate adaptation and mitigation efforts and mobilize climate finance is crucial. Improving the business climate, addressing governance and corruption vulnerabilities, and enhancing skill developments will help support strong and inclusive growth.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
This paper presents a technical note on bank stress testing and climate risks analysis in Maldives. Although the Maldives’ economy has rebounded strongly from the pandemic-induced contraction, macro and financial vulnerabilities remain. The stress test results broadly corroborated the identified vulnerabilities and quantified them. The climate risk analysis considered a micro approach that shocks banks’ immovable asset related loans under three climate scenarios. The system appears well capitalized, although capital ratios are biased upward by large government paper holdings with zero risk weights. The results of the solvency stress test corroborate that banks are less vulnerable to credit risk than they are to the impact of a possible unraveling of the sovereign–bank nexus. Banks’ nonperforming loans (NPL) ratios are projected to increase slightly in the baseline and moderately under stress. The resulting additional loan loss provisions are easily offset by ample pre-provision income.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
This Technical Assistance report on the Maldives discusses the findings and recommendations of financial soundness indicators (FSI) statistics mission. The mission, in collaboration with the staff of the Maldives Monetary Authority, updated the existing bridge tables to compile FSIs for deposit takers (DT) and developed new ones for insurance corporations, other financial corporations and households for reporting to IMF’s Statistics Department. The mission found that source data for compiling FSIs for DTs, and ICs are broadly adequate and generally meet the criteria established by the 2019 FSIs Guide for publication on the FSIs data portal. The commercial banks operating in Maldives have already adopted the International Financial Reporting Standard 9 (IFRS 9). The capital adequacy ratios of banks followed mainly the Basel I framework. The definitions of nonperforming loans and liquid assets are reviewed during the mission and recommendations are provided to update the definitions in line with the 2019 FSIs Guide and IFRS 9. The mission also recommends the publication of the new metadata and institutional coverage report forms accompanying the publication of FSIs.
Ruchir Agarwal
,
Vybhavi Balasundharam
,
Patrick Blagrave
,
Mr. Eugenio M Cerutti
,
Ragnar Gudmundsson
, and
Racha Mousa
The South Asia region is both a large contributor to climate change and also one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change. This paper provides an overview of the region’s vulnerabilities, national committments to mitigate emissions, and national policies to adapt to a changing climate. The paper also discusses policy measures that may be needed to make further progress on both mitigation and adapatation. Our analysis suggests that while substantial progress is being made, there remains scope to adopt a more cohesive strategy to achieve the region’s goals—including by improving the monitoring and tracking of adaptation spending, and by laying the groundwork to equitably increase the effective price of carbon while protecting low-income and vulnerable households in the region.
Mr. Giovanni Melina
and
Marika Santoro
The increased likelihood of adverse climate-change-related shocks calls for building resilient infrastructure in the Maldives. Fulfilling these infrastructure needs requires a comprehensive analysis of investment plans, including with respect to their degree of climate resilience, their impact on future economic prospects, and their funding costs and sources. This paper analyzes these challenges, through calibrating a general equilibrium model. The main finding is that there is a significant dividend associated with building resilient infrastructure. Under worsened climate conditions, the cumulative output gain from investing in more resilient technologies increases up to a factor of two. However, given the Maldives’ limited fiscal space, particularly after COVID-19, the international community should also step up cooperation efforts. We also show that it is financially convenient for donors to help build resilience prior to the occurrence of a natural disasters rather than helping finance the reconstruction ex-post.
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This 2005 Article IV Consultation with Maldives highlights that the Maldives suffered devastating damage from the December 2004 tsunami. Although human casualties were limited, damage to infrastructure has been extensive, with the cost of reconstruction estimated at nearly a half of gross domestic product. Reconstruction work has progressed slowly in 2005 but the pace is picking up. Recovery work has been slow due to insufficient coordination, problems in local consultation, and limited management capacity. The government and donors have been addressing these problems and the pace of implementation is finally accelerating. The 2006 budget is highly expansionary and threatens sustainability. The government has added to the fiscal deficit through new recruits, expansion of untargeted social programs, and a large domestically funded public investment program while using optimistic revenue projection. Fiscal reforms are of high priority. The report also explains that monetary policy should be geared to sustaining the peg arrangement based on indirect management. The objective of monetary policy should be to support the peg arrangement, which has served well as a credible nominal anchor.
International Monetary Fund
Small developing states are disproportionately vulnerable to natural disasters. On average, the annual cost of disasters for small states is nearly 2 percent of GDP—more than four times that for larger countries. This reflects a higher frequency of disasters, adjusted for land area, as well as greater vulnerability to severe disasters. About 9 percent of disasters in small states involve damage of more than 30 percent of GDP, compared to less than 1 percent for larger states. Greater exposure to disasters has important macroeconomic effects on small states, resulting in lower investment, lower GDP per capita, higher poverty, and a more volatile revenue base.