The only comprehensive database on international exchange operations and the global trade system 2016 Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions This is the 67th issue of the AREAER, which provides comprehensive descriptions of the foreign exchange arrangements, exchange and trade systems, and capital controls of all IMF member countries. It describes each country's market operations, international trade policies, controls on capital transactions, and financial sector measures. AREAERs from 1988 on are available on IMF eLibrary, and cumulative data from each annual report dating back to 1999 are available in a single online database, AREAER Online. The 2016 AREAER includes an overview and key summary tables with 192 individual country chapters.

The yearbook presents annual data covering 12 years for countries appearing in the monthly issues of IFS. There are some additional time series in country tables and some additional tables of area and world aggregates. The International Financial Statistics Country Notes presents, in two sections, brief information on the data published in International Financial Statistics. Country Notes is designed to be a companion volume to IFS: the monthly print edition, the Yearbook, the CD-ROM, and the Internet version.

Financial authorities face a number of key challenges, including maintaining financial stability; ensuring long-term finance for stable economic growth; promoting greater access to financial services for both households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); and fostering a competitive financial industry. Access to finance for SMEs is particularly important, given their large shares in economic activity and employment in Asian economies. Striking the appropriate balance in achieving these objectives through financial supervision and regulation is an important policy issue for financial regulators. This book is the record of a joint conference in 2014 organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute; Financial Services Agency, Japan; and International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific on the topic of financial system stability, regulation, and financial inclusion. Participants included noted scholars, policymakers, and financial industrial participants from Asia.   ADB Institute The ADB Institute, located in Tokyo, is the think tank of the Asian Development Bank. Its mission is to identify effective development strategies and improve development management in ADB’s developing member countries.   Financial Services Agency, Japan The Financial Services Agency, Japan is responsible for ensuring the stability of Japan’s financial system, the protection of depositors, insurance policyholders and securities investors, and smooth finance through such measures as planning and policymaking.   International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific The International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific contributes to economic surveillance and research, leads the IMF’s involvement in regional cooperation, manages regional capacity building programs, and promotes the understanding and two-way dialogue of the IMF in the region.

Financial authorities face a number of key challenges, including maintaining financial stability; ensuring long-term finance for stable economic growth; promoting greater access to financial services for both households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); and fostering a competitive financial industry. Access to finance for SMEs is particularly important, given their large shares in economic activity and employment in Asian economies. Striking the appropriate balance in achieving these objectives through financial supervision and regulation is an important policy issue for financial regulators. This book is the record of a joint conference in 2014 organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute; Financial Services Agency, Japan; and International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific on the topic of financial system stability, regulation, and financial inclusion. Participants included noted scholars, policymakers, and financial industrial participants from Asia. ADB Institute The ADB Institute, located in Tokyo, is the think tank of the Asian Development Bank. Its mission is to identify effective development strategies and improve development management in ADB's developing member countries. Financial Services Agency, Japan The Financial Services Agency, Japan is responsible for ensuring the stability of Japan's financial system, the protection of depositors, insurance policyholders and securities investors, and smooth finance through such measures as planning and policymaking. International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific The International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific contributes to economic surveillance and research, leads the IMF's involvement in regional cooperation, manages regional capacity building programs, and promotes the understanding and two-way dialogue of the IMF in the region.

Pacific island economies depend heavily on remittances - more than many other regions in the world. For example, remittances account for 27 and 21 percent of GDP for Tonga and Samoa, respectively. Reliance on foreign exchange inflows makes access to low-cost financial services and correspondent banking for cross-border flows critical for these economies. Australia, New Zealand, and the United States each account for approximately one-third of the remittances to the region

Global growth remains moderate and uneven, and a number of complex forces are shaping the outlook. These include medium- and long-term trends, global shocks, and many country- or region-specific factors. The April 2015 WEO examines the causes and implications of recent trends, including lower oil prices, which are providing a boost to growth globally and in many oil-importing countries but are weighing on activity in oil-exporting countries, and substantial changes in exchange rates for major currencies, reflecting variations in country growth rates and in exchange rate policies and the lower price of oil. Additionally, analytical chapters explore the growth rate of potential output across advanced and emerging market economies, assessing its recent track and likely future course; and the performance of private fixed investment in advanced economies, which has featured prominently in the public policy debate in recent years, focusing on the role of overall economic weakness in accounting for this performance.

The IMF's Balance of Payments Statistics contains more than 425,000 data series including aggregate and detailed information for about 200 countries and reporting entities. BOP delivers data on international economic transactions including total goods, services, factor income, current and capital transfers, and changes in an economy's external financial claims and liabilities. The Balance of Payments Statistics (BOPS) Yearbook, usually published in December, provides tables of data, featuring regional and world totals of balance of payments and IIP components and aggregates as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for economies. It is compiled in accordance with the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual

The Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook, usually published in December, contains balance of payments statistics for most of the world, compiled in accordance with the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual. Part 1 includes aggregate as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for countries. Part 2 provides tables of data, featuring area and world totals of balance of payments components and aggregates. Part 3 presents descriptions of methodologies, compilation practices, and data sources used by individual member countries in compiling their balance of payments and international investment position statistics.

The Global Monitoring Report 2014/2015 will, for the first time, monitor and report on the World Bank Group s (WBG) twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity, while continuing to track progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This Global Monitoring Report examines how a select set of policies in the areas of human capital and the environment can create jobs and make development more inclusive and sustainable, while highlighting how social assistance policies can help end poverty and improve growth prospects. It discusses most of these issues across a full spectrum of countries. This means the Report not only addresses low- and middle-income countries but also, for the first time, includes a discussion of high-income countries as well. The Report will contain quantitative information about the WBG twin goals: It will provide an assessment on how far the world has to go to end extreme poverty by 2030 and how much of prosperity has been shared with the bottom 40 percent of a country s population. The report is prepared in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)."

The October 2012 Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) finds increased risks to the global financial system, with the euro area crisis the principal source of concern. The report urges policymakers to act now to restore confidence, reverse capital flight, and reintegrate the euro zone. In both Japan and the United States, steps are needed toward medium-term fiscal adjustment. Emerging market economies have successfully navigated global shocks thus far, but need to guard against future shocks while managing a slowdown in growth. This GFSR also examines whether regulatory reforms are moving the financial system in the right direction, and finds that progress has been limited, partly because many reforms are in the early stages of implementation and partly because crisis intervention methods are still in use in a number of economies, delaying the movement of the financial system onto a safer path. The final chapter assesses whether certain aspects of financial structure enhance economic outcomes. Indeed, some structural features are associated with better outcomes. In particular, financial buffers made up of high-quality capital and truly liquid assets tend to be associated with better economic performance

The Government Finance Statistics Yearbook delivers statistical data on government financial operations for 133 IMF member countries in one definitive volume. Detailed annual data are presented on revenue, expense, net acquisition of nonfinancial assets, financing transactions, other economic flows as well as, balance sheet information; budgetary operations, extra- budgetary operations, social security, and consolidated financial operations of central governments; state governments, local governments, and the consolidated general government when available. All data conform to standards set forth in the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001, and are comparable from country to country. Institutional tables list information on government units. A section of the Government Finance Statistics Yearbook is devoted to a cross-country comparison of data.

The April 2012 Global Financial Stability Report assesses changes in risks to financial stability over the past six months, focusing on sovereign vulnerabilities, risks stemming from private sector deleveraging, and assessing the continued resilience of emerging markets. The report probes the implications of recent reforms in the financial system for market perception of safe assets, and investigates the growing public and private costs of increased longevity risk from aging populations.

Detailed annual data for Fund member governments are supplied on revenue income by source (tax, lending, bonds, etc.), and expenditure by sector (defense, education, health, etc.) for all levels of government (national, state, local). Topics covered include deficit/surplus or total financing, revenues or grants, expenditures, lending minus repayments, domestic financing, foreign financing, domestic debt or total debt, and foreign debt. The Yearbook provides data on budgetary operations, extra-budgetary operations, social security, and consolidated financial operations of central governments. A section of the Government Finance Statistics Yearbook is devoted to a cross-country comparison of data

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused dramatic loss of human life and major damage to the European economy, but thanks to an exceptionally strong policy response, potentially devastating outcomes have been avoided

After slowing sharply in the last three quarters of 2018, the pace of global economic activity remains weak. Momentum in manufacturing activity, in particular, has weakened substantially, to levels not seen since the global financial crisis. Rising trade and geopolitical tensions have increased uncertainty about the future of the global trading system and international cooperation more generally, taking a toll on business confidence, investment decisions, and global trade. A notable shift toward increased monetary policy accommodation - through both action and communication - has cushioned the impact of these tensions on financial market sentiment and activity, while a generally resilient service sector has supported employment growth. That said, the outlook remains precarious. Global growth is forecast at 3.0 percent for 2019, its lowest level since 2008-09 and a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from the April 2019 World Economic Outlook. Growth is projected to pick up to 3.4 percent in 2020 (a 0.2 percentage point downward revision compared with April), reflecting primarily a projected improvement in economic performance in a number of emerging markets in Latin America, the Middle East, and emerging and developing Europe that are under macroeconomic strain. Yet, with uncertainty about prospects for several of these countries, a projected slowdown in China and the United States, and prominent downside risks, a much more subdued pace of global activity could well materialise. To forestall such an outcome, policies should decisively aim at defusing trade tensions, reinvigorating multilateral cooperation, and providing timely support to economic activity where needed. To strengthen resilience, policymakers should address financial vulnerabilities that pose risks to growth in the medium term. Making growth more inclusive, which is essential for securing better economic prospects for all, should remain an overarching go

After strong growth in 2017 and early 2018, global economic activity slowed notably in the second half of last year, reflecting a confluence of factors affecting major economies. China's growth declined following a combination of needed regulatory tightening to rein in shadow banking and an increase in trade tensions with the United States. The euro area economy lost more momentum than expected as consumer and business confidence weakened and car production in Germany was disrupted by the introduction of new emission standards; investment dropped in Italy as sovereign spreads widened; and external demand, especially from emerging Asia, softened. Elsewhere, natural disasters hurt activity in Japan. Trade tensions increasingly took a toll on business confidence and, so, financial market sentiment worsened, with financial conditions tightening for vulnerable emerging markets in the spring of 2018 and then in advanced economies later in the year, weighing on global demand. Conditions have eased in 2019 as the US Federal Reserve signalled a more accommodative monetary policy stance and markets became more optimistic about a US-China trade deal, but they remain slightly more restrictive than in the fall.

The demand for high quality detailed public finance statistics covering a globally representative sample of countries has increased dramatically during the recent financial crisis. Due to the complexity of public finance statistics, however, such data tend to be either available in oversimplified high level aggregates and lacking in methodological transparency, or, available with a great level of detail and a unified methodological approach yet overly complicated to understand. The IMF's Government Finance Statistics Yearbook shows fiscal data of around 140 countries following the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 framework. The associated database includes data series covering over an almost 40 year period. The IMF's Statistics Department embarked on several initiatives to improve its accessibility

Just as uncertainty associated with COVID-19 pandemic was abating, Russia invaded Ukraine. Uncertainty endured, shifting from pandemic to war, affecting all countries but in different ways. Above-target inflation rates and inflation surprises have helped reducing debt-to-GDP ratios but such relief is often temporary. High uncertainty and marked divergences across countries require a tailored and agile fiscal policy response that is ready to adjust as the outlook becomes clearer. Fiscal policy will need to shift focus away from the exceptional pandemic-related measures as central banks increase interest rates to fight inflation. Emerging and developing economies that are net importers of energy and food will be hit the hardest by surging international prices. Many of these countries already experience scarring from the pandemic and have little fiscal space to tackle new spending pressures. Government should focus on those most affected by the crisis and priority areas. Ensuring greater resilience through investment in health, food, and energy security from cleaner sources has become even more urgent. Global cooperation to achieve these objectives is more important now than ever. As countries strive to promote an inclusive and green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic-and formulate responses to the immediate impacts of increased energy prices-they face shared challenges to secure tax revenues, address inequalities, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. National tax policies are under pressure to deal with cross-border spillovers-one country's action affects other countries. Chapter 2 discusses how international coordination on tax matters (i) reduces profit shifting by multinationals and tax competition between countries; (ii) improves tax enforcement by lifting the veil of secrecy to tackle tax evasion; and (iii) limits global warming. The current energy crisis reinforces the case for coordination among major emitters to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, urging countries to not allow near-term responses to detract efforts to establish credible policies for emissions reductions in the medium term.

The war in Ukraine has triggered a costly humanitarian crisis that demands a peaceful resolution. At the same time, economic damage from the conflict will contribute to a significant slowdown in global growth in 2022 and add to inflation. Fuel and food prices have increased rapidly, hitting vulnerable populations in low-income countries hardest. Global growth is projected to slow from an estimated 6.1 percent in 2021 to 3.6 percent in 2022 and 2023. This is 0.8 and 0.2 percentage points lower for 2022 and 2023 than projected in January. Beyond 2023, global growth is forecast to decline to about 3.3 percent over the medium term. War-induced commodity price increases and broadening price pressures have led to 2022 inflation projections of 5.7 percent in advanced economies and 8.7 percent in emerging market and developing economies-1.8 and 2.8 percentage points higher than projected last January. Multilateral efforts to respond to the humanitarian crisis, prevent further economic fragmentation, maintain global liquidity, manage debt distress, tackle climate change, and end the pandemic are essential.

The Quarterly National Accounts Manual provides conceptual and practical guidance for compiling quarterly national accounts (QNA) statistics. The Manual offers a comprehensive review of data sources, statistical methods, and compilation techniques to derive official estimates of quarterly GDP. The new edition - which upgrades the first edition, published in 2001- improves and expands the previous content based on recent methodological advances, best country practices, and suggestions received from QNA compilers and experts

The economic recovery in sub-Saharan Africa surprised on the upside in the second half of 2021, prompting a significant upward revision in last year's estimated growth. This year, however, that progress has been jeopardized. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a global economic shock that is hitting the region at a time when countries' policy space to respond to it is minimal to nonexistent. Most notably, surging oil and food prices are straining the external and fiscal balances of commodity-importing countries and have increased food security concerns in many countries. Moreover, the shock threatens to compound some of the region's most pressing policy challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic's social and economic legacy, climate change, heightened security risks in the Sahel, and the ongoing tightening of monetary policy in the United States.

An economic recovery is underway in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) but the pandemic still casts shadows on much of the region. The recovery was robust in the first quarter of 2021 but lost momentum in some countries in the second quarter, reflecting the rebound in COVID-19 cases. Real GDP is projected to grow by 6.3 percent in 2021, followed by a more moderate growth of 3 percent in 2022, but would not catch up with pre-pandemic trends in the medium term as persistent weakness in labor markets raises risks of scarring. Broadly favorable external conditions, high commodity prices, and pent-up demand support short-term growth, while monetary and fiscal policy reversals work in the other direction. Risks to the outlook are tilted downward. Main downside risks are the emergence of more transmissible and deadlier COVID-19 variants, tightening of global financial conditions, sovereign debt rollover risks, and social unrest as a year with heavy election schedule looms. Fiscal policy should allocate sufficient resources for health spending, including vaccination, and continue to support households and firms in a more targeted fashion while the pandemic persists, backed by credible assurances of medium-term debt sustainability to maintain access to finance. Monetary policy has started to address inflationary pressures but should continue to support economic activity insofar as the dynamics of inflation expectations permit. If rising inflation threatens to de-anchor inflation expectations, central banks should tighten monetary policy to signal a commitment to inflation targets and avoid persistent increases in inflation. Preemptive and decisive action should be accompanied with clear and transparent communication. Financial policy should shift from blanket support to targeted support of viable firms, to ensure that necessary labor and capital reallocations are not hindered. Supply-side policies should foster inclusive growth, including through progressive and growth-friendly tax reforms and measures to intensify climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The pandemic continues to spread in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), but economic activity is picking up. After a deep contraction in April, activity started recovering in May, as lockdowns were gradually eased, consumers and firms adapted to social distancing, some countries introduced sizable policy support, and global activity strengthened.