This Selected Issues paper for Australia highlights the dynamics of the Australian real exchange rate and its impact on Australia’s trade. The main findings are that the Australian real exchange rate is largely driven by world commodity prices and that it adjusts relatively rapidly to...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix examines the sustainability of the public finances in Eritrea. The paper analyzes monetary policy and management. It points out that the period since gaining independence in 1993 has not been long enough for the authorities in Eritrea to gain a...

This paper analyzes competitiveness in the Baltics in the run-up to European Union accession. Several factors appear to have driven movements in equilibrium real exchange rates in the Baltics since the start of the transition process. In the earlier years of transition, price liberalization,...

This Selected Issues paper on the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) reviews the evolution of actual and equilibrium real effective exchange rates (REER). The current level of the CEMAC REER is broadly in line with its long-term equilibrium value. The estimation approach...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes trends in Tanzania’s external competitiveness and export performance. Using various multilateral and bilateral real exchange rates, the paper looks at developments in Tanzania’s real effective exchange rate since 1990. It evaluates the...

This paper presents an Ex Post Assessment of Longer-Term Program Engagement for Uruguay. Uruguay has had a series of Stand-By Arrangements that were treated mostly as precautionary between March 1996 and early 2002. These were viewed as a helpful seal of approval, and a vehicle for intensive IMF...

Domestic demand continued to grow at rapid rates, despite corrective fiscal and monetary policy measures. Although trade and financial sector reforms advanced and foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations were liberalized, there was less progress in improving the business environment, reducing...

The staff report on the Ex Post Assessment of Longer-Term Program Engagement for the Republic of Azerbaijan highlights macroeconomic performance and fiscal policy. On the structural front, significant progress was achieved in fiscal management, the privatization of small- and medium-size...

The strategy underlying the Arusha agreement envisaged a three-year transition period, involving further national reconciliation steps, implementation of lasting power-sharing arrangements, and initiation of national reconstruction. To overcome poverty, Burundi should diversify its economy and...

This Selected Issues paper assesses whether Latvia’s strategy to enter ERM2 and adopt the euro is appropriate. The paper examines the possibility of an exchange rate misalignment from various perspectives. It considers different notions of the real effective exchange rate and...