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.
This paper focuses on Uganda’s 2013 Article IV Consultation and Sixth Review Under the Policy Support Instrument, Request for a Three-Year Policy Support Instrument and cancellation of Current Policy Support Instrument. Driven mainly by investment and trade, growth has recovered to about 5 percent, a stronger than expected rebound from the low 3½ percent expansion registered last year. Fast implementation of road construction, the start of operations of the Bujagali hydropower plant, and a good harvest boosted aggregate demand. Envisaged public finance management reforms are set to address the problems of persistent under budgeting, arrears accumulation, and failure to sanction financial irregularities.
The staff report for Uganda’s combined 2008 Article IV Consultation and Fourth Review Under the Policy Support Instrument is presented. Building on a foundation of two decades of sound policies, Uganda achieved an impressive economic performance, with high growth, low inflation, and steady poverty reduction. The deteriorating economic environment could expose weaknesses in banks’ risk management practices, gaps in home-host supervisory arrangements, operational risks as financial innovation outpaces banks’ systems and controls, and increasing risk appetite owing to intensifying competition from the surge of new banks.
This Selected Issues paper on Uganda discusses the progress toward harmonization of capital account regulations and capital market integration. A unified East African Community financial market would offer several benefits to the regional economy. It would expand the opportunities for savings and investment financing, encourage more competition among banks and financial institutions, and lower transaction costs through economies of scale. Greater diversification, risk management, and consumption smoothing would also be possible in a broader financial market, while monetary union would eliminate exchange rate risk within the region.
Uganda’s medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) aims at higher public savings based on spending restraint and rising domestic revenue. The Bank of Uganda (BOU) has successfully contained the one-time shocks to prices of increases in electricity tariffs and temporary sugar and diesel fuel shortages. In an environment of strong inflows, price stability remains the primary objective of monetary policy. A shallow financial sector limits Uganda’s ability to absorb foreign exchange inflows and is in itself a formidable obstacle to faster economic growth.