This paper discusses Bolivia’s Fourth Review Under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) and Request for Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria (PC). Economic activity in Bolivia is picking up, led by exports. Real GDP growth is projected to reach 3.8 percent in 2004. Inflation has...

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.

Rebalancing in Spain’s private sector is under way, but with more modest progress on reducing stocks. Spain is subject to significant spending pressures, reflecting unfavorable demographic trends and subdued growth prospects, and will require substantial structural reform. Priority...

This Selected Issues paper for Belgium evaluates whether price increases in Belgium are excessive. It assesses the household and bank balance sheets and their vulnerability to a slowdown in housing prices, and identifies differences in real estate markets between Belgium and other countries. The...

This Selected Issues paper for the People’s Republic of China—Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) reviews the residential property market and implications of an aging population. The fiscal sector impact of price fluctuations is important in Hong Kong SAR with land sales...

The note delves on the U.S. housing market outlook, the potential benefits of mitigating distressed sales household deleveraging, and the recovery. Policies to facilitate labor market adjustment to reduce the large employment volatility without affecting efficient labor allocation could prevent...

This Selected Issues paper examines application of fiscal framework alternatives to the case of Peru. Although growth has been at historical highs over the last decade, Peru still has an important infrastructure gap and a quarter of its population still lives in poverty. This paper applies...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes medium-term fiscal sustainability in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper focuses on the challenge of distributing the nonrenewable resource wealth across generations. Its recommendations are geared toward the goal of intergenerational distribution and therefore...

The IMF’s Executive Board completed the first review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement in June 2010 and decided that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had reached the completion point under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. In 2010, an...