S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 This Tuesday (9th), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the results of a mission to the Comoros Islands, an Arab country on the East Coast of Africa, from September 22 to October 6. According to an IMF statement, the head of the delegation, Mbuyamu Matungulu, has claimed that the local Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to be up 2.5% this year, driven mainly by the building industry, public works, and agriculture. <\/p>\n
\u201cMacroeconomic developments are broadly favorable in 2012,\u201d said Matungulu. \u201cConstruction and public works, as well as in food crop agriculture. The economy continues benefiting from sustained donor support, foreign direct investment, and resilient remittances,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Fund expects inflation to remain at 5% this year, the current account deficit to drop from 9% in 2011 to 6.9% in 2012, and foreign exchange reserves to reach a level equivalent to seven months of imports. The mission was conducted as part of an Extended Credit Facility program, which the IMF grants to poorer countries, issued more promptly and featuring more flexible repayment conditions. <\/p>\n
Another purpose of the visit was to complete the preparations so that the Comoros will have a right to reduce its foreign debt under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, maintained by the Fund and the World Bank. <\/p>\n
According to Matungulo, implementation of the agenda of structural reforms in the country has been \u201cquite satisfactory.\u201d In addition to making fiscal adjustments, Comoros is expected to allow the private initiative to enter state-owned companies. The IMF has informed that the government has floated a tender to attract \u201cinternational expertise\u201d into managing the national power company, and has approved a plan which paves the way for foreign investors to acquire stakes in the local telecom company.<\/p>\n
The Comoros Development Bank is in the process of being made into a commercial bank, and a plan is being devised to split up the National Postal and Financial Services Company, whose financial segment will be ceded to a foreign investor. <\/p>\n
\u201cReflecting ongoing reforms in public financial management and in the financial and public utility sectors, medium-term macroeconomic prospects are favourable,\u201d said the mission head. \u201cThe The government expressed its determination to fast-track these reforms, aiming in 2013 to secure effective private sector involvement in the management of Comores Telecom and to bring about substantive changes in the management of MA-MWE (power utility) and the state-owned oil-import company,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Matungulo added that \u201ccontinued rigorous implementation of the reform agenda\u201d could cause real GDP growth to increase to 3.5% next year. <\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The projection was issued by an IMF delegation. In 2013, the Arab country\u2019s economy may grow by 3.5%. The government is implementing an agenda of fiscal, financial and utilities reforms.<\/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-42827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"The projection was issued by an IMF delegation. In 2013, the Arab country\u2019s economy may grow by 3.5%. The government is implementing an agenda of fiscal, financial and utilities reforms.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42827","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=42827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}