This Selected Issues paper explores the medium-term determinants of the current account balance in Papua New Guinea. It provides an assessment of the exchange rate, and presents some background on recent exchange rate developments. It uses two dynamic panel regression models to estimate the...

This Selected Issues paper underlies the financial sector developments in Niger. The paper presents an overview of the financial sector of Niger and discusses the recent banking developments. It analyzes the recent trends in key microfinance indicators, and investigates reasons behind...

This 2006 Article IV Consultation highlights that following a vigorous expansion in recent years, a cyclical slowing in New Zealand’s economy commenced in 2005, with growth declining to 2¼ percent. Economic growth had averaged 4¼ percent annually in 2002–04, with domestic...

The economy has started to recover from a slowdown associated with the global financial crisis. Senegal has made significant progress under a three-year Policy Support Instrument (PSI), but challenges remain. Increasing growth and reducing vulnerabilities and poverty require broad-based reforms....

This Selected Issues paper on Thailand reviews public investment and investment recovery from financial crises. Thailand is a country with a moderate tax effort, which indicates that increases in public saving should be achieved through a mixture of tax and expenditure measures. Future budgets...

The First Review Under the Standby Credit Facility (SCF) discusses Solomon Islands’ satisfactory performance under the SCF-supported program, approved in December 2011. The current arrangement is intended to be precautionary and, given the current level of reserves, the authorities do not...

This 2012 Article IV Consultation reports that Palau’s growth is expected to be favorable at 3 percent in FY2012 and to average 2 percent over the medium term. The outlook is clouded by an unsettled global environment, and downside risks dominate. Highly dependent on tourism, imports of...

The report focuses on the role played by financial market infrastructures (FMIs) in maintaining and promoting financial stability in Japan. FMIs are important tools that contribute to the Japanese financial sector, especially in the domain of domestic financial stability. The oversight and...

This Article IV Consultation reports that macroeconomic developments in Guatemala have been broadly positive since 2010. Although the external current account deficit widened in 2011, the surplus in the capital account was larger, partly owing to banks’ increased access to foreign credit...

The report summarizes the assessment of Financial Sector Supervision and Regulation on Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) on banking supervision, insurance supervision, and securities regulation of Cyprus. The report assesses that the financial system in Cyprus is in a...