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International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.

Abstract

The 2018 Annual Report of the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics provides an overview of trends in global balance of payments statistics.

Mr. Nils O Maehle
,
Ms. Haimanot Teferra
, and
Mrs. Armine Khachatryan
Many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries liberalized their economies in the 1980s and early 1990s. This paper reviews the foreign exchange regime reforms in selected SSA, and their associated macroeconomic policies and economic performance during and after these reforms were undertaken. Before liberalization, most of the reviewed countries were characterized by extensive foreign exchange rationing, sizeable black market premiums, and declining per capita real income. Today, the countries that successfully reformed look markedly different. Rationing and parallel market spreads are a distant memory, and per capita income has increased sharply.
Mr. Masafumi Yabara
Capital markets in the East African Community (EAC) face common challenges of low capitalization and liquidity, but to different degrees. EAC member countries have made noticeable progress in developing domestic capital markets through a regional approach, removing constraints on capital transactions and harmonizing market infrastructure. Nevertheless, empirical analysis suggests capital market integration has not deepened during the past few years in the EAC, although convergence of investment returns is taking place to some extent. Learning from the experience of the West African Economic and Monetary Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, EAC countries would benefit from four actions to accelerate financial market integration: (i) further harmonize market infrastructure; (ii) strengthen regional surveillance mechanisms; (iii) encourage local currency bond issuance by multilateral financial institutions; and (iv) build the capacity of the existing regional institutions.
Sarah Sanya
and
Matthew Gaertner
This paper is an empirical analysis of competitiveness in the banking system of four out of the five East African Community (EAC) countries2. The results show that the degree of competition is low due to a combination of structural and socio-economic factors. By way of preview, the analysis ranks the countries in terms of banking sector competitiveness in the following order: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda.
Yi David Wang
This paper seeks to quantify existing financial barriers among East African Community (EAC) member countries based on analysis of each member country’s foreign exchange market. The primary contribution of this paper is the generation of an aggregate measure of financial barriers for the three relatively more advanced members (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) using forward foreign exchange and interbank interest rate data. Its empirical results, which are corroborated by other evidence such as the levels of development of the financial markets and restrictions on capital flows, suggest that Kenya is the EAC’s most financially open country, followed by Uganda, and then Tanzania. The fact that the three countries exhibit different degrees of financial openness suggests that financial integration in the EAC region has a way to go.
International Monetary Fund
The paper examines the experiences of nine African countries that have introduced floating exchange rate regimes in the 1980s. The various types of market arrangements are explored, focusing on the roles of market participants. After a review of exchange rate developments under the regimes, some related concerns with respect to urban income and employment, resource allocation, and short-term instability are analyzed. In the light of this analysis, the paper suggests some policy recommendations aimed at ensuring the success of the floating regimes.
Mr. Joseph Gold

Abstract

This paper presents the sixth survey of developments in international and national monetary law and practice involving special drawing rights (SDRs), currencies, and gold. The paper highlights that a member’s currency held by the IMF in accounts other than the General Resources Account is not subject under the IMF’s Articles of Agreement to the principle of maintenance of value in terms of the SDR that applies to currency held in the IMF’s General Resources Account. The IMF has express or implied powers to invest holdings in accounts to which no obligation to maintain value is attached.