Country Reports
2025
March 3, 2025
Malaysia: 2025 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
Description: Malaysia’s economic performance has significantly improved in 2024, supported by strong domestic and external demand. Disinflation is taking hold and external pressures have eased. The favorable economic conditions provide a window of opportunity to build macroeconomic policy buffers and accelerate structural reforms, especially as risks to growth are tilted to the downside amid an uncertain global outlook. Risks to the inflation outlook are tilted to the upside, including from global commodity price shocks and potential wage pressures.
March 3, 2025
El Salvador: Request for Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for El Salvador
Description: El Salvador has recovered well from the pandemic, supported by robust remittances and buoyant tourism flows, amid a sharp improvement in the country’s security situation. Inflation has fallen and the external imbalances have narrowed more recently, consistent with a gradual improvement in public finances and favorable terms of trade. In this context, sovereign spreads have come down sharply with recent debt buyback operations helping to ease near-term external financing needs. Despite recent progress, El Salvador’s macroeconomic imbalances remain significant, stemming from high fiscal deficits and debt, as well as low external and financial buffers, in the context of dollarization. Meanwhile, underlying productivity remains low, reflecting in part persistent social and infrastructure gaps, as well as a legacy of weak governance and transparency, which have discouraged investment. The Bukele administration is intent on focusing its second mandate on addressing pending macroeconomic and structural challenges and boosting economic growth, under an IMF-supported program.
March 3, 2025
Sri Lanka: Third Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, Financing Assurances Review, and Monetary Policy Consultation Clause-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sri Lanka
Description: Sri Lanka underwent a political transition with presidential and parliamentary elections in late 2024. The new authorities expressed commitment to the program. Reform efforts are bearing fruit with growth recovering, low inflation, increased revenue collection, and reserves accumulation. By end-2024, Sri Lanka’s real GDP is projected to have recovered about 40 percent of its loss incurred between 2018 and 2023. Nevertheless, the economy is still vulnerable, and restoration of debt and external sustainability depends on continued implementation of reforms.
February 28, 2025
India: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Financial System Stability Assessment
Description: India’s financial system has withstood the pandemic well and has become more resilient since the 2017 FSAP. Nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs)—especially nonbank financial companies (NBFCs) providing credit with wholesale financing—and market financing have grown, making the financial system more diverse and interconnected. The role of the state has diminished, yet it remains significant, including in using the financial system to pursue social and public finance goals.
February 27, 2025
India: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for India
Description: Prudent macroeconomic policies have supported India’s economic resilience, with growth expected to recover from a recent softening and inflation expected to converge to target. Risks to the outlook include deepening geoeconomic fragmentation and a slower pace of domestic demand recovery.
February 26, 2025
Indonesia: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note on Macroprudential Policy
Description: The 2017 FSAP focused its recommendations around strengthening and clarifying the mandates of the authorities. The FSAP noted that the multiple objectives of the organizations, together with the fact that there was no defined framework for cooperation and the separate control over prudential tools, created the risk that policies implemented by both agencies might come into conflict or have undesirable consequences and blur accountability lines.
February 26, 2025
Indonesia: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note on Climate Risk Assessment
Description: Indonesia is exposed to both climate change transition risks and physical risks. With primary energy supply heavily dominated by fossil fuels, like many other countries, and as a major exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas, Indonesia is exposed to risks from the transition toward a carbon-neutral economy. Moreover, Indonesia is vulnerable to natural hazards, such as floods, droughts, and wildfires. With global temperatures rising, the frequency and severity of such events is expected to rise as well.
February 26, 2025
Indonesia: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note on Stress Testing and Systemic Risk Analysis
Description: The FSAP team undertook a thorough top-down corporate and bank solvency, bank liquidity stress tests as well as analysis of interconnectedness using mid-2023 data. This note covers the methodology and results of the scenario-based solvency test, the single factor sensitivity analysis, the liquidity test, and interconnectedness analysis. The stress test exercise was carried out on a sample of 105 commercial banks. The analysis is heavily dependent on supervisory data on individual banks’ positions shared by the OJK and BI as well as publicly available information on corporate sector. While FSAP results are not directly comparable to the authorities’ own stress testing results due to differences in scenarios, methodologies, and objectives, they provide an assessment of the system-wide resilience of the Indonesian banking sector at the current juncture.
February 25, 2025
Solomon Islands: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Solomon Islands
Description: Solomon Islands has weathered the shocks of civil unrest, pandemic, and commodity price hikes, and achieved the milestones of hosting the Pacific Games in late 2023 and conducting peaceful general elections in April 2024. These achievements have raised the country's profile and strengthened national unity, but with costs—public debt has nearly tripled since before the pandemic, and the government's cash reserves have been significantly depleted. While staff expects continued modest growth in 2024 and 2025, medium-term growth prospects appear moderate and fiscal and current account deficits are expected to persist. Now is the time for the authorities to advance reforms to tackle the perennial challenge of stagnant per-capita income growth, while ensuring fiscal sustainability and resilience.