This Selected Issues paper examines external developments and competitiveness in France. Over the past decade, the current account has deteriorated from a surplus of 1.2 percent of GDP in 2002 to a deficit of about 2.3 percent in 2012, as France lost ground in goods trade and services recorded...

The external imbalances that accompanied Latvia’s integration into the global economy have generated mixed effects. Stabilizing net foreign liabilities will require an improvement in the goods and services balance. Outward migration from Latvia has raised concerns about social and...

This paper discusses Bhutan’s Technical Assistance Evaluation report. Participation in the statistical projects financed by the Japanese government in national accounts, prices, government finance, and balance-of-payments statistics is having a major effect on Bhutan’s statistical...

The current account deficit by the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina in recent years has fluctuated to about 20 percent of GDP. But official current account statistics suffer from several shortcomings. Possible sources of the savings required to achieve a fiscal position consistent with...

The first analysis focuses on external stability, an important issue in view of Croatia’s external imbalances and the requirements of the IMF’s 2007 Decision on Bilateral Surveillance. The paper shows that the real exchange rate is broadly in line with economic fundamentals and...

This 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights that since the robust recovery from the global financial crisis, Singapore’s growth momentum has eased and become more erratic. Growth decelerated to 1¼ percent in 2012 before picking up sharply in the first half of 2013. This reflects...

The Fund's decisions to lend to member countries in amounts well above the access limits for Mexico (1995), and since then, have raised important questions about the role of the Fund in crisis resolution and the appropriate size of Fund access in capital account crises. This paper reviews past...

After the failure of the early 1980s, a second attempt at capital account liberalization was gradually carried out in Chile during the 1990s, this time in parallel with increased exchange rate flexibility. Capital account regulations were applied to support the independent monetary policy...

Indonesia’s growth in 2009 was four and a half percent, the third highest in the G-20 group of countries; and the pace is accelerating in 2010. Both push and pull factors have attracted large portfolio inflows, particularly into government bonds and Short-term Bank Indonesia certificates...