Technical Assistance Reports
2025
February 7, 2025
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Technical Assistance Report-Technical Assistance to Develop a Macroeconomic Framework at the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Description: Technical assistance to develop a macroeconomic framework was delivered to the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH) between April 2021 and December 2023. The Quarterly Macro Forecasting Framework (QMFF) developed during this project is a quarterly framework whose main behavioral equations are specified in terms of deviations of real variables from their long-run trends. The framework is a novel combination of a gap-based modeling approach and financial programing. This novel approach was custom-built for the CBBH, but it has the flexibility to be adjusted to accommodate the macroeconomic characteristics of various countries and different exchange rate regimes, as well as to incorporate backward- or forward-looking expectation formation. While considerable progress has been achieved in the operation of the QMFF, more time and resources are needed to fully utilize and integrate the QMFF as the CBBH’s main policy analysis and forecasting tool.
February 7, 2025
Slovak Republic: Technical Assistance Report-Next Phase of Spending Reviews
Description: Slovak Republic has made significant progress in institutionalizing spending reviews, having completed spending reviews covering 64 percent of total public spending since initiating the spending review project eight years ago. Despite progress, challenges remain, and important choices will need to be made going forward to enhance the budgetary impact of spending reviews. This may be done through more targeted spending reviews, a more comprehensive analysis of potential measures, strengthened coordination within the Ministry of Finance and with line ministries, as well as their better integration into the budget cycle.
February 7, 2025
Indonesia: Technical Assistance Report-Report on National Accounts Statistics Mission Energy and Air Emissions Accounts (July 8–12, 2024)
Description: A technical assistance (TA) mission was conducted during July 8–12, 2024, to support Statistics Indonesia (BPS) in improving Energy and Air Emissions Accounts statistics. The mission provided advise on how to improve the existing Indonesia energy and air emissions accounts and provided training to the participants on general System of Environmental Economic Accounts (SEEA) principles, including, for instance, use of the residence principle.
January 31, 2025
Republic of Armenia: Technical Assistance Report-Personal Income Tax and Social Security Contribution Gaps
Description: This report presents results on a review of data available to the State Revenue Committee for estimating the Personal Income Tax and Social Security Contribution gaps. It is concluded that SRC has sufficient quality data available from operational audits to assess the gaps.
January 31, 2025
Peru: Technical Assistance Report-Report of the Diagnostic Mission on Macro-relevant Climate Change Statistics (July 10–14, 2023)
Description: Peru has made significant commitments to climate change through the Law N°30754. The law stipulates the development of a national plan to fight climate change and emphasizes upon the production of data and statistics to monitor and guide the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions. Peru’s National Statistical Office (INEI) regularly compiles and releases publications related to environment statistics and accounts based on the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) in collaboration with the concerned official agencies. However, there is a need for production of timely, coherent statistics to effectively monitor NDCs and guide the implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. In this context, a mission took place from July 10–14, 2023, funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and hosted by INEI, Peru. During this mission, discussions with authorities focused on key priorities, identifying feasible developments such as SEEA energy and emissions flow accounts, and establishment of domestic carbon footprints.
January 17, 2025
Republic of Kosovo: Technical Assistance Report-25 Years of Tax Administration: Progress Review and a Roadmap for Continued Success
Description: IMF Fiscal Affairs Department mission reviewed Kosovo's tax administration progress, highlighting achievements in increased revenue collection and compliance risk management. Recommendations for further improvement include focusing on digital transformation, enhancing human resource capacity, and leveraging third-party data.
January 17, 2025
Dominican Republic: Technical Assistance Report-Climate Policy Diagnostic
Description: [This report is only available in Spanish] The Dominican Republic requested capacity development on climate policy from the Fiscal Affairs Department. This is a summary of the technical assistance report and the recommendations provided to the authorities. The report includes recommendations to improve adaptation and resilience to extreme weather events on the island, such as tropical storms, hurricanes, floods and droughts, with emphasis on reforms to water resource management, and disaster risk management financing. The report also proposes mitigation policies and reforms to the electricity sector, aligned with the country's development strategy and its international emission reduction commitments. Finally, the report offers institutional and governance recommendations to better integrate climate considerations into decision-making processes in the public sector.
January 17, 2025
Seychelles: Technical Assistance Report-Macroprudential Stress Testing and Climate Risk Analysis
Description: The Technical Assistance (TA) mission, conducted in Victoria, Seychelles, from May 2 to 17, 2023, assisted authorities with macroprudential stress testing and climate risk analysis. The stress testing focused on strengthening the solvency and liquidity frameworks: (i) for solvency, considering credit and foreign exchange risks to design robust scenarios, applying econometric techniques to enhance their risk assessment, and (ii) for the liquidity stress test, enhancing the cash flow analyses utilized by the authorities. For the climate risk analysis framework, the mission reviewed essential components, identified data sources, and provided hands-on training for climate risk assessment. Recommendations include fostering collaboration within CBB and other agencies, better leveraging available data, and improving data collection for stress testing and climate risk analysis. The CBS is expected to advance its framework and address data challenges to implement stress testing and climate risk analysis initiatives effectively.
January 17, 2025
Malawi: Technical Assistance Report-Report on the Improving Estimates of Gross Domestic Product Mission (June 24–July 5, 2024)
Description: The mission assisted the National Statistical Office of Malawi improve the quality of the published annual estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), progressed the use of Value Added Tax (VAT) data as a basis for developing quarterly series and supported development of current price estimates of GDP based on the expenditure approach (GDP-E). Specially, the mission reviewed the quality of the published GDP series and finalized Supply and Use Tables for 2017. This allowed the development of annual current price estimates of GDP-E. In addition, the mission initiated estimation of quarterly current price estimates of GDP for some activities based on data for company sales from Malawi’s VAT system.
January 17, 2025
Rwanda: Technical Assistance Report-Further Strengthening the Nowcasting Framework at the National Bank of Rwanda
Description: At the request of the National Bank of Rwanda (NBR), a technical assistance (TA) mission from the Monetary and Capital Markets (MCM) department was conducted from October 9 to 18, 2023, to enhance the NBR’s Forecasting and Policy Analysis System (FPAS). The mission aimed to strengthen the understanding and application of nowcasting frameworks for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, as well as to analyze the effects of weather shocks on food crop production and fresh food prices. The mission included interactive technical sessions with NBR staff and achieved the following: (1) Improved forecast evaluation by resolving discrepancies in the use of different Core CPI definitions in the medium-term Quarterly Projection Model (QPM) and nowcasting models; (2) Established a system for analyzing the impact of weather shocks, particularly rainfall, on food crop production and fresh food prices; (3) Provided hands-on training for NBR staff on using CPI nowcasting tools to monitor monthly inflation outcomes and creating and interpreting uncertainty fan charts for GDP and CPI projections; and (4) Enhanced understanding of the construction of high-frequency real sector indicators in GDP nowcasting models.