Belgium has effected a remarkable fiscal adjustment, best illustrated by the decline in its public debt. While benefiting from an appreciable decline in interest rates, most of the underlying consolidation reflected a considerable increase in the tax burden, one of the highest in the...

This paper examines Croatia’s 2004 Article IV Consultation and Request for Stand-By Arrangement (SBA). Croatia has established a record of solid growth and low inflation since the mid-1990s. Real GDP growth has averaged about 4.5 percent, with inflation in the low single digits. This...

The three-year arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) that was approved by the Executive Board of the IMF in March 1998 in support of Cote d'lvoire's adjustment efforts went off track after the first year. In the cocoa and coffee sectors, the measures that were...

Algeria’s Financial System Stability Assessment highlights the Observance of Standards and Codes on monetary and financial policy transparency and banking supervision. Financial intermediation in Algeria will be bank-based in the future, and only politically difficult decisions to...

This report assesses Korea’s data dissemination practices against the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) and is complemented by an in-depth assessment of the quality of the key macroeconomic datasets for the national accounts, prices, government finance, monetary, and...

This report assesses Vanuatu's regulatory and supervisory arrangements for the financial sector complied with internationally accepted standards and measures of good practice. It assesses all the main domestic and offshore sectors, as well as the prudential aspects of measures to combat money...

This paper evaluates Mali’s Fifth Review Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. The implementation of the program was satisfactory in the first nine months of 2002. All the quantitative performance criteria, benchmarks, and financial performance indicators were observed. The...

The strong hydrocarbon export performance has allowed Algeria to strengthen its external position and record a budget surplus. Executive Directors commend the government for the broad improvement in macroeconomic indicators. The government has eased the fiscal stance, and this strategy has...

This 2002 Article IV Consultation highlights that eight consecutive years of growth in Barbados ended in 2001 as real GDP contracted by 2¾ percent, owing mainly to the adverse impact on tourism of the global economic slowdown and the September 11 terrorist attacks, as well as continuing...

This paper describes economic developments in Vanuatu during the first half of the 1990s. In 1995, economic growth recovered to more than 3 percent, following the slowdown in the previous year, owing to increased agricultural production, especially of copra and cocoa, and the growth in...