The Slovak Republic’s 2005 Article IV Consultation reports that sound macroeconomic management and a wide range of fundamental structural reforms are supporting nominal convergence with European Union norms. Real GDP growth accelerated to 6 percent in 2005, driven by an improvement in the...

This Selected Issues paper for the Republic of Korea focuses on the role of monetary policy in the current context of slowing growth and rising inflation pressures. Korea has not remained immune to the global slowdown, and with the cycle turning downward, the trade-off between inflation and...

Chinese inflation, particularly non-food inflation, has been surprisingly modest in recent years. We find that supply factors, including those captured through upstream foreign commodity and producer prices, have been important drivers of non-food inflation, as has foreign demand for Chinese...

The spillovers from the U.S. economy to Canada have been assessed. It uses structural vector autoregressions to analyze the role of financial linkages in real and financial spillovers from the United States to Canada. The implications of Canada’s predictable price level have been...

The key findings of Suriname’s 2008 Article IV Consultation show that a narrow economic base, terms-of-trade swings, and a weak policy/institutional framework have in the past led to macroeconomic instability. Weak policy and institutional frameworks have contributed to higher economic...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.

The Statistical Appendix of Kuwait discusses the basic social and demographic indicators, selected economic indicators, GDP, balance of payments, gross domestic expenditure, LPG and oil production, disposal, and prices, consumer price index, wholesale price index, industrial output, agricultural...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.

Macroeconomic performance has been satisfactory, and program implementation under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility arrangement has also been good. The medium-term projections have been updated in anticipation of relief under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). Despite recent...

This Selected Issues paper for the Kingdom of the Netherlands reports the Antillean economy lacks natural resources and is open and undiversified, relying mainly on exports of services such as tourism, international financial services, shipping, and oil refining. Exports and domestic consumer...