The SDR is an international reserve asset created by the IMF to supplement the official reserves of its member countries.
The SDR is not a currency. It is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members. As such, SDRs can provide a country with liquidity.
A basket of currencies defines the SDR: the US dollar, Euro, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, and the British Pound.
Since the onset of the pandemic, SDR channeling (and equivalent currency amounts) has helped many countries in need, especially those eligible for financial support from the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST).
Since 2020, channeling of $55 billion is providing the PRGT with the capacity to mobilize $40 billion in interest-free loans to our poorest members through 2024. This financing helps support growth enhancing reforms in these countries. So far, these loans have benefited 56 countries and could benefit more in the years ahead.
Channeling has also supported the operations of the RST, which delivers affordable long-term financing to help vulnerable countries tackle long-term challenges including climate change. To date, 23 RST partners have channeled about $45 billion to the RST, which is expected to contribute toward meeting an estimated $29 billion in affordable financing.
Economic activity has picked up in recent months, supported by a rebound in agriculture, though still affected by the lingering effects of two years of drought and recent severe flooding. The security situation remains challenging, with the government scaling up its military actions against the Al-Shabab terrorist group, amid the planned withdrawal of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) by end-December 2024. Despite these significant challenges, the authorities remain committed to the reform effort, leveraging the benefits of the HIPC Completion Point achieved in December 2023.
Following years of high growth led by public investment, consecutive exogeneous shocks have weighed heavily on Djibouti’s economy and on its debt. Nonetheless, with the peace deal in Ethiopia, growth rebounded strongly in 2023. The normalization of the external environment together with Djibouti’s ongoing debt rescheduling discussions with main creditors are expected to reopen policy space, but restoring debt sustainability would require fully addressing the debt burden through a balanced mix of reforms, new concessional financing, and debt relief.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation with Belize highlights that real gross domestic product growth and inflation moderated in 2023. Belize’s key policy priorities include raising the primary balance with revenue mobilization and expenditure rationalization to lower public debt to a level that provides sufficient buffers, increasing expenditure in priority areas, adopting growth enhancing structural reforms, and building resilience to climate change and related disasters. These policies would boost growth and make it more inclusive. Boosting medium-term growth requires increasing female labor force participation, enhancing access to affordable credit for small and medium size enterprises, reducing crime, improving the business climate, and adopting a disaster resilience strategy that strengthens structural, financial, and post-disaster resilience and is based on a multi-year macro-fiscal framework. Keeping vulnerable financial institutions under enhanced supervision and requesting recapitalization when needed is important to maintain financial stability. Strengthening the currency peg requires increasing international reserves by reducing public debt, implementing structural reforms and limiting government financing by the Central Bank.
On May 10, 2024, the IMF’s Executive Board approved the use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for the acquisition of hybrid capital instruments issued by prescribed holders. This new use of SDRs, which adds to seven already authorized prescribed SDR operations, is subject to a cumulative limit of SDR 15 billion to minimize liquidity risks. The Executive Board also established a strong expectation that contributors channeling SDRs to prescribed holders under such capital contributions have Voluntary Trading Arrangements (VTAs) in place to ensure sufficient liquidity and equitable distribution of potential SDR exchanges into currencies. A review of the proposed use is expected to be conducted when cumulative hybrid capital contributions surpass SDR 10 billion or two years after the authorization, whichever comes first.
This CD engagement covered two distinct areas to help the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) deliver on its price stability mandate, it: 1) provided a forward-looking analysis of the NBG’s balance sheet to assess its policy solvency and to help institutionalize such a process, and 2) outlined a strategy to develop hedging instruments in interest rate and foreign exchange (FX) markets to support monetary policy transmission. With virtually no interest-bearing liabilities, the NBG balance sheet is robust. Under the adverse shock, it improves on account of FX revaluation gains. Higher inflation also helps, since the need for a higher policy rate generates larger domestic interest income. Institutionalizing this analysis allows for early warning of the need to reduce dividend payments (or for re-capitalization) thereby supporting operational independence. Georgia has made good progress on many of the enabling conditions for developing hedging markets, but several structural factors provide challenges. A supportive regulatory environment is in place, market infrastructure is robust, and there is a range of instruments available to serve as the underlying instrument for derivatives. However, there is a lack of heterogeneity of financial risk profile and appetite amongst participants. Recommendations include setting up a standardized FX forward trading platform, pushing for upgrades of banks’ treasury management systems, supporting the targeted education and training efforts of the Georgian Financial Markets Treasuries Association, revising the current FX forward index to be more informative by publishing outright transacted rates; and publishing Overnight Indexed Swap benchmarks.
A technical assistance (TA) mission on external sector statistics (ESS) was conducted for the Andorran Statistics Department (ASD) in the Principality of Andorra in March and April 2022. The mission focused on initiating the compilation of international investment position (IIP) and in producing balance of payments statistics regularly with an improved coverage and quality. The mission also assisted the ASD in developing the new direct reporting system, which will be used as one of the main source data for compiling balance of payments statistics and IIP annually.
Economic activity has picked up in recent months, supported by a rebound in agriculture, though still affected by the lingering effects of two years of drought and recent severe flooding. The security situation remains challenging, with the government scaling up its military actions against the Al-Shabab terrorist group, amid the planned withdrawal of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) by end-December 2024. Despite these significant challenges, the authorities remain committed to the reform effort, leveraging the benefits of the HIPC Completion Point achieved in December 2023.
Following years of high growth led by public investment, consecutive exogeneous shocks have weighed heavily on Djibouti’s economy and on its debt. Nonetheless, with the peace deal in Ethiopia, growth rebounded strongly in 2023. The normalization of the external environment together with Djibouti’s ongoing debt rescheduling discussions with main creditors are expected to reopen policy space, but restoring debt sustainability would require fully addressing the debt burden through a balanced mix of reforms, new concessional financing, and debt relief.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation with Belize highlights that real gross domestic product growth and inflation moderated in 2023. Belize’s key policy priorities include raising the primary balance with revenue mobilization and expenditure rationalization to lower public debt to a level that provides sufficient buffers, increasing expenditure in priority areas, adopting growth enhancing structural reforms, and building resilience to climate change and related disasters. These policies would boost growth and make it more inclusive. Boosting medium-term growth requires increasing female labor force participation, enhancing access to affordable credit for small and medium size enterprises, reducing crime, improving the business climate, and adopting a disaster resilience strategy that strengthens structural, financial, and post-disaster resilience and is based on a multi-year macro-fiscal framework. Keeping vulnerable financial institutions under enhanced supervision and requesting recapitalization when needed is important to maintain financial stability. Strengthening the currency peg requires increasing international reserves by reducing public debt, implementing structural reforms and limiting government financing by the Central Bank.
On May 10, 2024, the IMF’s Executive Board approved the use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for the acquisition of hybrid capital instruments issued by prescribed holders. This new use of SDRs, which adds to seven already authorized prescribed SDR operations, is subject to a cumulative limit of SDR 15 billion to minimize liquidity risks. The Executive Board also established a strong expectation that contributors channeling SDRs to prescribed holders under such capital contributions have Voluntary Trading Arrangements (VTAs) in place to ensure sufficient liquidity and equitable distribution of potential SDR exchanges into currencies. A review of the proposed use is expected to be conducted when cumulative hybrid capital contributions surpass SDR 10 billion or two years after the authorization, whichever comes first.
This CD engagement covered two distinct areas to help the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) deliver on its price stability mandate, it: 1) provided a forward-looking analysis of the NBG’s balance sheet to assess its policy solvency and to help institutionalize such a process, and 2) outlined a strategy to develop hedging instruments in interest rate and foreign exchange (FX) markets to support monetary policy transmission. With virtually no interest-bearing liabilities, the NBG balance sheet is robust. Under the adverse shock, it improves on account of FX revaluation gains. Higher inflation also helps, since the need for a higher policy rate generates larger domestic interest income. Institutionalizing this analysis allows for early warning of the need to reduce dividend payments (or for re-capitalization) thereby supporting operational independence. Georgia has made good progress on many of the enabling conditions for developing hedging markets, but several structural factors provide challenges. A supportive regulatory environment is in place, market infrastructure is robust, and there is a range of instruments available to serve as the underlying instrument for derivatives. However, there is a lack of heterogeneity of financial risk profile and appetite amongst participants. Recommendations include setting up a standardized FX forward trading platform, pushing for upgrades of banks’ treasury management systems, supporting the targeted education and training efforts of the Georgian Financial Markets Treasuries Association, revising the current FX forward index to be more informative by publishing outright transacted rates; and publishing Overnight Indexed Swap benchmarks.
A technical assistance (TA) mission on external sector statistics (ESS) was conducted for the Andorran Statistics Department (ASD) in the Principality of Andorra in March and April 2022. The mission focused on initiating the compilation of international investment position (IIP) and in producing balance of payments statistics regularly with an improved coverage and quality. The mission also assisted the ASD in developing the new direct reporting system, which will be used as one of the main source data for compiling balance of payments statistics and IIP annually.
