S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 This Monday (2nd), the International Monetary Fund announced a US$ 16.78 million loan to Mauritania. The loan is part of an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) established in 2010 and valid for three years. The new loan will raise the total loaned to US$ 83.89 million, according to the Fund.<\/p>\n
ECFs are loans destined for poor countries and feature special conditions, such as more flexible issuance rules and zero interest rates. The total value of the agreement with Mauritania is US$ 117.4 million.<\/p>\n
The IMF has also announced the completion of its fourth report on Mauritania since the agreement went into force. In a press statement, the Fund\u2019s deputy managing director Nemat Shafik said that the country performed strongly in 2011, with fiscal and foreign policies that caused the country\u2019s economy to withstand a strong drought, a declining international demand, and high food and fuel prices. The country is dependent on commodities exports.<\/p>\n
Shafik said, however, that progress in tackling unemployment has been limited. For this year, the Fund believes that the loosening of fiscal policy is \u201cappropriate\u201d in order to counter the effects of the drought, but advises on spending cuts once the dry spell is over, so as to ensure \u201cfiscal sustainability.\u201d <\/p>\n
The executive emphasizes the determination of local authorities to consolidate the fiscal position over the medium term, and claims a \u201ckey component of this strategy\u201d is to replace universal price subsidies with \u201cwell-targeted social safety nets\u201d.<\/p>\n
To further reduce vulnerabilities, the IMF advises that the country\u2019s exposition to commodity price volatility must be lowered by creating a fund to manage export revenues, especially those from mining, by improving tax collection, and by seeking revenues from further exploration of natural resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cStructural reforms to create employment, reduce poverty, and diversify the economy away from commodity exports remain crucial,\u201d said Shafik.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The funds are provided for in an agreement signed in 2010, which covers a total of US$ 117 million. The Fund has praised the country\u2019s economic management, in spite of drought and foreign crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"The funds are provided for in an agreement signed in 2010, which covers a total of US$ 117 million. The Fund has praised the country\u2019s economic management, in spite of drought and foreign crisis.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}