KEY ISSUES Overview. Korea has experienced impressive growth since the 1970s, enabling it to escape the middle-income trap. However, this prosperity has been concentrated lately within the highly competitive export-oriented conglomerates, whereas household income growth and service sector...

KEY ISSUES Context. With GDP growth below trend and the investment phase of the mining boom having passed its peak and beginning to decline, a key issue is how Australia can manage the mining-production/export phase and encourage broader-based growth. The main external risks include a slowdown...

KEY ISSUES Near-term outlook. Malaysia’s healthy, noninflationary growth continued in 2013, albeit at a somewhat slower clip than earlier years. While domestic demand remained robust, the economy was buffeted by external headwinds, including from volatile capital flows in spring-summer and...

KEY ISSUES Outlook and risks. The macroeconomic outlook is favorable. Growth has firmed, inflation has eased, and unemployment has remained low—trends that are expected to continue. The main risks relate to the impact of the Fed’s tapering, the outlook for the Mainland, and a possible...

This Selected Issues paper describes the current tax system in Bhutan and suggests options for tax policy reform. Though significant hydropower revenues are expected in the medium term as major projects come on-stream, reforms to the existing tax system in the interim will generate fiscal room...

KEY ISSUES Outlook and risks The economic expansion is becoming increasingly embedded and broad-based, driven by supportive financial conditions, historically high commodity prices, resurgent construction activity related to the Canterbury post-earthquake rebuild and general housing shortages,...

KEY ISSUES Recent Developments. After four years of consecutive growth, the unprecedented floods that hit Honiara in early April 2014 have undermined economic activity. The flash floods caused loss of life and widespread damage to key infrastructure, water and sanitation systems, housing, and...

KEY ISSUES Kiribati’s key economic challenges are to reduce large structural fiscal imbalances and increase growth and employment opportunities, while facing obstacles posed by remoteness, lack of scale, vulnerabilities to external shocks and climate change. The significant fiscal...

This Selected Issues paper discusses reasons behind rise of inflation in Philippines. The paper focuses on inflation developments and the monetary policy framework in the Philippines. It employs a global latent factor model to decompose inflation into common drivers and idiosyncratic factors for...