IMF Staff Concludes Staff Visit to Yemen
May 2, 2024
Fiscal Policies
May 1, 2024
Guinea Bissau: Further Improvements in Tax Compliance
May 1, 2024
This summary provides an overview of the guidance provided to the Guinea-Bissau tax administration on the consolidation of its modernization agenda, underpinned by the tax administration´s digital transformation. Starting amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the digitalization journey has progressively improved taxpayer services with FAD guidance. The tax administration reform´s next steps should focus on the use of information technology and third-party data to enhance timely voluntary tax compliance, enforce accurate reporting, and incentivize and monitor revenue mobilization. The TA report also reviewed the next steps to the Value-Added Tax implementation.
Morocco: 2024 Article IV Consultation, Review Under the Flexible Credit Line Arrangement, First Review Under the Resilience and Sustainability Arrangement, and Rephasing of Access Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Morocco
May 1, 2024
The Moroccan economy once again showed resilience to negative shocks in
2023, as economic activity accelerated, inflation slowed, and the current account deficit
narrowed despite headwinds from water scarcity (which caused a severe loss of jobs in
the agricultural sector), the September 2023 earthquake, and lower growth in the Euro
Area. The ambitious infrastructure plan announced by the authorities (including in water
and energy sectors) is expected to boost investment and growth in the next few years,
with the current account gradually converging towards the medium-term norm. The
fiscal deficit in 2023 was below the level projected in the Budget and the authorities
reiterated their commitment to a gradual fiscal consolidation over the next three years.
Implementation of the structural reform agenda has continued, particularly regarding
the overhaul of social protection, health care, and education systems.
Transcript of Press Briefing: Asia Pacific Department Regional Economic Outlook April 2024
April 30, 2024
IMF Staff Reaches Staff-Level Agreement with Mali on Rapid Credit Facility and Completes 2024 Article IV Mission
April 30, 2024
Opening Remarks at the press conference on the release of the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific
April 30, 2024
Towards an Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable National Pension System in Iraq
April 30, 2024
A pension system is at the heart of social protection. By ensuring income security for older persons and other vulnerable groups, it prevents poverty, reduces inequality, and facilitates consumption smoothing. A pension system also affects the working population’s labor market choices and has important fiscal implications. Iraq’s current pension system is highly fragmented, inequitable, and inefficient. First, it fails to provide adequate income protection to most of Iraqi’s old age population and other vulnerable groups, such as survivors and persons with disability. Second, the public sector pension is already putting substantial pressure on the budget and is potentially unsustainable given the projected acceleration of the total pension bill due to recent policy changes. Third, it sets an uneven playing field between the public and private sectors, contributing to the continued expansion of an already outsized civil service and holding back much-needed economic diversification and private sector growth. Thus, a comprehensive pension reform is urgently needed.
Based on collaboration between the IMF, ILO and the World Bank this policy note aims to: 1) Provide an assessment of the existing public and private pension system across the four dimensions: fiscal sustainability; labor market implications; coverage; and adequacy of benefits. 2) Develop and propose options to adjust the pension system with a view to making it fiscally sustainable, more inclusive and adequate, and conducive to private sector development and labor market formalization. 3) Provide a basis to engage key stakeholders—including workers, employers organizations and the civil society—on strategies to achieve a more inclusive system, importantly by including workers in the informal economy, female workers, workers with disabilities, and other disadvantaged groups.
Operational Guidance Note for IMF Engagement on Social Spending Issues
April 30, 2024
This note provides general guidance on the operationalization of the strategy for IMF engagement on social spending. Social spending plays a critical role as a key lever for promoting inclusive growth, addressing inequality, protecting vulnerable groups during structural change and adjustment, smoothing consumption over the lifecycle, and stabilizing demand during economic shocks. Social spending policies have also been playing an important role in tackling the structural challenges associated with demographic shifts, gender inequality, technological advances, and climate change. This note builds on a series of notes on IMF engagement on specific social spending issues since the publication of the 2019 strategy paper and provides operational guidance on when and how to engage on social spending issues, in the context of surveillance, IMF-supported programs, and capacity development.