Middle East and Central Asia > Uzbekistan, Republic of

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Mr. Serkan Arslanalp
,
Mr. Barry J. Eichengreen
, and
Chima Simpson-Bell
After moving slowly downward for the better part of four decades, central bank gold holdings have risen since the Global Financial Crisis. We identify 14 “active diversifiers,” defined as countries that purchased gold and raised its share in total reserves by at least 5 percentage points over the last two decades. In contrast to the diversification of foreign currency reserves, which has been undertaken by advanced and developing country central banks alike, active diversifiers into gold are exclusively emerging markets. We document two sets of factors contributing to this trend. First, gold appeals to central bank reserve managers as a safe haven in periods of economic, financial and geopolitical volatility, when the return on alternative financial assets is low. Second, the imposition of financial sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and Japan, the main reserve-issuing economies, is associated with an increase in the share of central bank reserves held in the form of gold. There is some evidence that multilateral sanctions imposed by these, and other countries have a larger impact than unilateral sanctions on the share of reserves held in gold, since the latter leave scope for shifting reserves into the currencies of other non-sanctioning countries.
Moayad Al Rasasi
and
Ezequiel Cabezon
Uzbekistan has significantly improved its monetary policy framework during 2017-21. Nevertheless, the transition to inflation targeting is challenging as the country is going through a period of deep structural reforms. Therefore, the Central Bank of Uzbekistan (CBU) will have to monitor structural reforms and calibrate monetary policy accordingly. This paper identifies institutional and structural gaps, and assesses the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission. Institutional gaps are assessed using institutional indexes while transmission is assessed using VARs. It concludes that in the coming years, reforms will need to continue, to further improve the CBU’s governance and independence, develop financial markets, but most of all to reduce the still large footprint of the state in the financial sector as well as in the overall economy.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
At the request of the authorities, a remote multi-topic statistics diagnostic mission for Uzbekistan took place during March 1–19, 2021.1 In close cooperation with officials of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Statistics (SSC), the Central Bank of Uzbekistan (CBU), and the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the mission (i) assessed the collection, compilation, and dissemination practices for the datasets covered by the mission; (ii) identified key high-level priorities and developed a medium-term action plan for statistical improvement and the associated capacity development (CD) needs; and (iii) developed a roadmap for subscription to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). The mission covered the following topics: national accounts (NA) and prices, 2 government finance statistics (GFS) including public debt, external sector statistics (ESS), monetary and financial statistics (MFS), and SDDS subscription.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
At the request of the Republic of Uzbekistan authorities for technical assistance (TA) on external sector statistics (ESS), and with the support of the Middle East and Central Asia Department (MCD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a mission from the IMF Statistics Department (STA) visited Tashkent from September 30 through October 11, 2019. This was the second TA mission under the auspices of the Data for Decisions Fund and the third since the Presidential Order of September 12, 2017, on Measures to Ensure the Accessibility and Openness of Economic and Financial Data for the Republic of Uzbekistan was issued.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
The contents of this report constitute technical advice provided by the staff of the IMF to the authorities of the Republic of Uzbekistan in response to their request for technical assistance. The main objective of the mission was to assist the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan in improving the collection, processing, and dissemination of balance of payments, international investment position, and gross external debt statistical data, including improvement of the International Transactions Reporting System, as well as implementation of a medium-term program for further development. After the Republic of Uzbekistan authorities embarked on a course toward greater openness in the country, Uzbekistan made some progress in improving the production and dissemination of statistical data, but in addition to the gains that were seen, the mission noted a number of deficiencies in the External sector statistics compilation system. It is imperative to correct the methodology for calculating operations involving reinvested income for financial corporations and reflect the results obtained in the balance of payments.
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
This paper examines Republic of Uzbekistan’s Requests for Disbursement Under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Purchase Under the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI). The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is significantly impacting Uzbekistan’s economy, reducing growth, and creating additional external and fiscal financing needs. IMF financial assistance under the RCF and the RFI, along with support from other multilateral institutions, will help cover Uzbekistan’s fiscal and balance of payments needs and mitigate the impact on its foreign exchange reserves. It will also provide resources to support increased crisis spending for healthcare, social protection, and public support for affected firms and households. Uzbekistan aims to continue implementing its structural reform agenda, to complete the transformation to a modern, open market economy, and to improve governance and public management. It has committed to safeguard the use and improve the efficiency of its public resources by increasing transparency and accountability.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
This technical assistance report on the Republic of Uzbekistan states that the mission achieved all its objectives and Uzbekistan’s country page is now ready to be introduced in International Financial Statistics. Uzbekistan has recently intensified its efforts to improve its financial sector statistics. With the ongoing liberalization of the Uzbek economy, availability of granular data for an assessment of risks related to the financial sector is becoming more important. Uzbekistan reports 11 core and one additional financial soundness indicators (FSI) for deposit takers on a quarterly basis for publication on the IMF’s website. The one important improvement needed, particularly for the other depository corporation survey, is the enhancement of the counterparty sector classifications. The mission also assisted the Central Bank of Uzbekistan in establishing an initial framework for the compilation of a quarterly other financial corporation survey using the Standardized Report form 4SR. The Prudential Supervision Department is now ready to report all core and additional FSIs for deposit takers (DT), as well as their underlying financial statements, with the reporting frequency to be increased from quarterly to monthly. In order to support progress in the several areas, the mission recommended a detailed action plan with the priority recommendations summarized.
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
This 2018 Article IV Consultation highlights that Uzbekistan’s external position remains strong. External shocks, which began in 2014, lowered exports, commodity prices, and remittances and contributed to a decline in growth from about 8 percent to 5 percent in 2017. Growth of domestic employment remained below one percent. A loosening of fiscal and monetary policies, along with price and foreign exchange liberalization, caused inflation to pick up in late 2017 and was close to 20 percent in early 2018. International reserves were equivalent to 19 months of imports of goods and services at end-2017 and debt is low. GDP is projected to expand by about 5 percent in 2018–19, but domestic job creation will continue to lag.
Raja Almarzoqi
and
Samy Ben Naceur
In this paper, we use a bank-level panel dataset to investigate the determinants of bank interest margins in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) over the period 1998–2013. We apply the dealership model of Ho and Saunders (1981) and its extensions to assess the extent to which high spreads of banks in the CCA can be related to bank-specific variables, to competition, and to macroeconomic factors. We find that interest spreads are affected by operating cost, credit risk, liquidity risk, bank size, bank diversification, banking sector competition, and macroeconomic policies; but the impact depends on the country.