Guy Meredith, chief of the International Monetary Fund mission that visited last week (25 April to 6 May) to review the Dominican Republic’s stand-by arrangement, gave the DR good grades regarding the implementation of the agreement. Furthermore, in a statement issued by the IMF, the mission reaffirms the economic overview previously released by the Central Bank and indicated that matters relative to the debt created by the Central Bank certificates of savings are under control.
The IMF overview, as published in a statement, is as follows:
“Developments under the program remain favorable, and preliminary information suggests that the end-March 2005 quantitative performance criteria have been met with comfortable margins. The continued implementation of cautious fiscal and monetary policies have contributed to strengthening confidence, reducing inflation, and lowering interest rates. Preliminary estimates, based on standard national accounts methodology, also suggest that real GDP expanded by about 4 percent in the first quarter of 2005. Meanwhile, the 12-month inflation rate fell to 3.9 percent in April from 28.7 percent in December 2004, and the average interest rate on central bank certificates is now below 14 percent. In this regard, and despite the growth in Central Bank certificates in early 2005 – reflecting the larger-than-anticipated accumulation of international reserves, the Central Bank’s quasi-fiscal losses remain within the program’s estimates.”
The IMF indicates that Dominican authorities will travel to Washington, D.C. shortly to resume the discussions regarding the implementation of the program and advance on draft laws for the so-called reform of fiscal management in order to ensure additional resources to compensate for expected reduced customs collections once the DR-CAFTA free trade agreement goes into effect. Meredith has also highlighted the Washington discussions will focus on the implementation of the banking strategy.
See http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2005/pr05100.htm