Country Reports

November 22, 2016

Mexico: 2016 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Informational Annex

Description: This 2016 Article IV Consultation highlights that Mexico has navigated successfully a complex external environment, characterized by heightened global financial-market volatility. The economy continues to grow at a moderate pace, and inflation is close to the target. The flexible exchange rate is playing a central role in helping the economy adjust to external shocks. Macroeconomic policies remain focused on maintaining strong fundamentals. Continued implementation of the structural reforms agenda should help lift potential growth over the medium term. The economy is projected to grow by 2.1 percent in 2016.

November 22, 2016

Honduras: Selected Issues and Analytical Notes

Description: This Selected Issues paper uses efficiency frontiers for benchmarking of social spending in Honduras. The results reveal significant room to improve public health and education spending efficiency with potentially large fiscal savings. From an input-oriented point of view, Honduras performs poorly in education and health spending efficiency. From an output-oriented point of view, health spending efficiency appears to be in line with regional comparators, while there is room to improve efficiency in secondary education. In health and education spending, the priority is to tackle the disconnection between compensation benefits and labor productivity.

November 22, 2016

Mexico: Financial System Stability Assessment

Description: This paper discusses the findings and recommendations made in the Financial System Stability Assessment for Mexico. Mexico’s economic fundamentals are strong. The medium-term outlook for the Mexican economy foresees steady growth underpinned by strong macroeconomic policies, broad reform initiatives, and relatively strong balance sheets. Key risks are external and include a U.S. growth slowdown, lower oil prices, and volatility in global financial markets. The financial system is broadly resilient, notwithstanding some weaknesses under certain adverse shocks. The solvency and liquidity stress tests of the banking system indicate that it can withstand severe adverse macro-financial shocks despite large capital losses in some cases.

November 22, 2016

Mexico: Selected Issues

Description: This Selected Issues paper analyzes transmission of monetary policy rates to lending and deposit rates in Mexico. The results show that transmission of the policy rate to market rates is statistically significant in all cases, except for mortgage rates. For sight deposits, pass-through is low, with a 1 percentage point increase in the policy rate leading to a 0.2 percentage point rise in the deposit rate. For term deposits the pass-through is stronger, but remains below unity at 0.7. The pass-through to both lending and deposit rates is very rapid. The dynamic specifications show that pass-through is significant in either the current or the following month, and the long-term impact is achieved during the second month.

November 22, 2016

Honduras: 2016 Article IV Consultation, Third and Fourth Reviews under the Stand-By Arrangement and the Arrangement under the Standby Credit Facility-Press Release and Staff Report

Description: This 2016 Article IV Consultation highlights that the real output of Honduras in 2015 grew at 3.6 percent, slightly higher than projected. From the demand side, growth was supported by the recovery in private consumption—which responded positively to a reduction in gasoline prices and strong remittances inflows—and a boost in investment. On the supply side, the recovery in manufacturing and agriculture supported greater activity. The outlook for 2016 remains favorable. Real GDP through the second quarter of 2016 grew by 4.1 percent (year over year) broadly consistent with IMF staff projection of 3.6 percent for 2016. This projected growth performance is supported by scaled up public infrastructure investment and a supportive monetary policy stance.

November 21, 2016

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: Selected Issues

Description: This Selected Issues paper quantifies the short- and medium-term growth effects of major ongoing highway and railway projects in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. A standard neoclassical growth model is augmented with public capital to capture both demand and supply-side effects of public infrastructure investments. The calibrated model suggests that the four ongoing highway and railway investments of 2–3 percent of GDP annually for 2014–18 are likely to raise the growth rate of real GDP by 0.5 percentage points on average for each year in 2014–20. Enhancing public investment efficiency can increase growth effects up to 0.8 percentage points.

November 21, 2016

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 2016 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report

Description: This 2016 Article IV Consultation highlights that the economy of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has been growing at a solid pace on the back of strong domestic demand and exports. The real GDP is now 16 percent above its precrisis level. In 2015, GDP growth increased to 3.8 percent from 3.6 percent in 2014. The unemployment rate continues to decline. Headline inflation has hovered at zero for the last two years, while core inflation turned positive at the end of 2015. GDP growth is projected to soften in 2016 but pick up in the medium term contingent on the return of political stability.

November 18, 2016

Republic of Equatorial Guinea: Selected Issues

Description: This Selected Issues paper analyzes macrofinancial linkages in Equatorial Guinea. Insufficient fiscal consolidation in response to falling oil prices and production has translated into arrears accumulation, leading to a sharp deterioration in commercial banks’ balance sheets. Although banks’ capital and liquidity ratio appear adequate, profitability has been shrinking, owing to weak economic activity and decelerating credit supply. Moreover, recent stress tests reveal a high sensitivity to negative liquidity and asset quality shocks. Financial development remains lackluster, which hurts economic development and effective structural transformation. Finally, strong macrofinancial linkages compounded by regional subsidiary-parent interlinkages call for increased scrutiny.

Notes: Also Available in Spanish

November 17, 2016

Sweden: Financial System Stability Assessment

Description: This paper discusses the findings of the Financial System Stability Assessment for Sweden. The Swedish financial system is large and highly interconnected, putting a premium on the accompanying policy framework. Relative to the size of the domestic economy, the financial system is among Europe’s largest. It features complex domestic and international linkages, reflecting Sweden’s role as a regional financial hub. However, the macrofinancial risks have grown since 2011, for example the rising share of highly indebted households. Stress tests also suggest that banks and nonbanks are largely resilient to solvency shocks, but concerns persist about the ability of bank models to capture unexpected losses.

November 17, 2016

Sweden: Selected Issues

Description: This Selected Issues paper discusses measures taken to enable timely macroprudential action in Sweden. The Swedish financial supervisory authority has adopted a number of macroprudential measures under its mandates for financial stability and consumer protection. The supervisory authority imposed a loan-to-value limit of 85 percent for new mortgage loans in 2010, with the soundness principle as the legal basis for this measure. Under its financial stability mandate, it also set a floor on risk weights for Swedish mortgages, which was raised from 15 percent to 25 percent in September 2014. Following an expansion of the regulatory toolkit, a range of capital buffers have also been established and subsequently expanded.