Technical Assistance Reports
2025
May 14, 2025
South Africa: Technical Assistance Report-Report on Government Finance Statistics Mission (October 7-18, 2024)
Description: A technical assistance mission from the IMF’s Statistics Department visited South Africa during October 7-18, 2024, to support the authorities in improving compilation and dissemination of Government finance statistics (GFS) and public sector debt statistics (PSDS). The mission worked with the South African Reserve Bank, National Treasury and Statistics South Africa on a number of issues including the classification and definition of the general government, the classification of specific transactions in line with the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014, the internal consistency of data, and the consistency of fiscal data published by the three different institutions.
May 9, 2025
People's Republic of China: Technical Assistance Report-Advancing Risk Management for Large Taxpayers
Description: This report provides a summary of guidance provided to State Taxation Administration officials on ways to advance risk management for large taxpayers. Building from previous FAD guidance, this report focused on enhancing risk management, and governance and accountability.
May 9, 2025
Chile: Technical Assistance Report-Tax Revenue Projections
Description: [This report is only available in Spanish] Accuracy in fiscal revenue projections is a fundamental pillar of the budgetary process in Chile. In contexts without economic shocks, the differences between tax revenue estimates and actual collections were minimal. However, the pandemic and numerous temporary tax policy measures introduced significant uncertainty that has complicated tax revenue projections. To address this challenge, it is crucial to identify the sources of the gaps in tax revenue projections and communicate them transparently. This Technical Assistance Report, which focused on enhancing the accuracy of tax revenue projections, made some key recommendations. They include: 1) Using proxy variables that most more accurately reflect the tax bases that are estimated; 2) Critically and prudently assessing and revisiting the impact of discretionary changes, both in tax policy and administration; and 3) Strengthening the institutional framework and transparency of the tax revenue projection process, by promoting clear and consistent methodologies that also ensure continuity and regular updates.
May 9, 2025
Saint Lucia: Technical Assistance Report-Report on National Accounts Mission Expenditure-Based Gross Domestic Product (September 2–13, 2024)
Description: In response to a request from Saint Lucia’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), a technical assistance (TA) mission was conducted from September 2–13, 2024, to support the development of experimental expenditure-based GDP (GDP-E) estimates as a complementary product to the existing production-based GDP (GDP-P) program. The mission aimed to assess data sources and methods for all expenditure categories, produce experimental GDP-E estimates, identify data inconsistencies, and provide a roadmap toward publication. A product flow approach was introduced for household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) and gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), which incorporated domestic production, international trade, and estimates of intermediate consumption. Direct estimates were available for international trade in goods and services and government final consumption expenditure (GFCE). Experimental GDP-E estimates covering 2016–2023 were compiled using merchandise trade, balance of payments (BOP) statistics, benchmark supply and use tables (SUT), and domestic production statistics. While early-year results aligned well with GDP-P, the statistical discrepancy widened after 2018, notably during COVID-19. These gaps highlight potential data quality issues. The mission recommended; i) continuing GDP-E compilation to identify source data problems, ii) integrating GDP-E with the planned 2026 GDP rebasing exercise, and iii) expanding the SUT product dimension to improve HFCE and GFCF estimates.
May 9, 2025
Republic of Armenia: Technical Assistance Report-Personal Income Tax and Social Security Contribution Gaps Estimation Based on Operational Audits
Description: This report presents estimates of the Personal Income Tax (PIT) and Social Security Contributions tax gaps for Armenia for 2020–2023. The tax gaps are based on a bottom-up approach using operational audits. The PIT gap is estimated at 3.8 percent of potential PIT liability.
May 9, 2025
Republic of Moldova: Technical Assistance Report-Tax Audit Program Diagnostic
Description: This report provides a diagnostic evaluation of Moldova's State Tax Service (STS) tax audit program, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Key findings indicate that while Moldova has made commendable progress, significant improvements are needed in legal frameworks, risk-based audit approaches, and organizational structures. Recommendations focus on modernizing compliance risk management, enhancing audit methodologies, and restructuring the STS to better address complex tax risks.
May 7, 2025
Chile: Technical Assistance Report-Strengthening Systemic Liquidity Management
Description: This report evaluates four key areas that significantly impact the efficiency and resilience of Chile's financial sector, offering targeted recommendations for improvement. These areas are central bank collateral policy, emergency liquidity assistance, systemwide market support programs, and the development of the repo market. The BCCh should introduce a collateral framework with eligibility criteria, valuation procedures, and risk mitigation measures, differentiating between collateral for monetary policy operations and ELA/systemwide support. An Emergency Liquidity Assistance framework should be established, with internal procedures and transparency measures. The BCCh should create an internal ELA Working Group to ensure preparedness and efficient decision-making by standardizing a request letter, an ELA master agreement, and funding templates. It should also develop the ELA policy parameters, including duration, interest rate, and potential conditionality. In addition, the BCCh, CMF, and MoF should establish a Crisis Management Group to ensure clarity about their respective roles. During the social unrest and COVID-19 pandemic of 2019–20, the BCCh implemented effective measures to stabilize core markets. Future systemwide support programs should adhere to key principles: discretionary intervention triggers based on market indicators, pricing to encourage initial take-up and facilitate exit, preference for temporary operations to limit risks, and transparency to ensure effectiveness and accountability. The report highlights the legal, regulatory, taxation, accounting, and infrastructure issues constraining repo market activity. These span multiple government agencies and the private sector. The BCCh should coordinate with relevant stakeholders to formulate a comprehensive medium-term market development strategy to address these challenges.
May 7, 2025
Suriname: Technical Assistance Report-Liquidity Forecasting and Participation in Money Market Operations
Description: The Central Bank of Suriname (CBvS) undertook significant steps to modernize its monetary policy framework by shifting from an exchange rate regime to a monetary targeting regime in 2021. The main objective was to stabilize inflation and manage liquidity effectively, especially after the Suriname dollar's sharp depreciation and high inflation. The CBvS faced challenges in managing excess reserves, leading to the introduction of tools like Central Bank Certificates (CBCs) in 2022 and the increase in reserve requirements in 2023. However, persistent issues like low engagement in auctions and high bid rates continued to complicate liquidity management. The mission supported the CBvS by introducing an advanced statistical framework for liquidity forecasting and by assessing challenges in the money market participation. The forecasting framework integrates 12 forecasting models, helping to enhance the accuracy of reserve money projections and improve operational efficiency. The mission also involved collaborative efforts through surveys and workshops with commercial banks to address their concerns and ensure better understanding and participation in the monetary policy framework. The recommendations include reviewing the use of CBCs, improving liquidity forecasting, and modernizing the banking infrastructure to better align with the CBvS' policy objectives and enhance the effectiveness of the monetary system.
May 7, 2025
South Africa: Technical Assistance Report-Stress Testing the Central Bank Balance Sheet and Calibrating Risk-based Capital Buffers
Description: Central bank balance sheet stress testing (CBST) models are designed to support central banks in determining appropriate capital levels and informing decisions on dividend distribution. A key concept in this context is policy solvency, which refers to a central bank's ability to generate realized earnings over time that exceed its monetary policy and operational costs. This mission proposed a CBST model specifically tailored for the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). The background is that the SARB and National Treasury (NT) have established a new financial framework focusing on the Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account (GFECRA). A key principle is to prevent GFECRA distributions from undermining the SARB’s policy solvency. The mission demonstrated the CBST model to enable the SARB to institutionalize a process for forecasting its balance sheet under macroeconomic scenarios, ensuring robustness despite external adverse shocks. The CBST model includes a Value-at-Risk approach for foreign exchange (FX) revaluation losses and assesses the adequacy of equity buffers under combined FX-at-Risk and Inflation-at-Risk scenarios. Given the SARB’s public commitment to annually recalibrate the two buffers, it is important for the SARB to institutionalize and publicly communicate the methodologies underpinning the process.
May 7, 2025
Georgia: Technical Assistance Report-Data for Decisions (D4D) Residential Property Price Index (December 2–6, 2024)
Description: Technical assistance (TA) was provided to the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat) during December 2–6, 2024 to extend the scope and coverage of the residential property price index (RPPI) using web-scraped data. This was the latest mission to Georgia in a series since 2018 to specifically focus on the RPPI but the third one to be conducted under the Data for Decisions (D4D) Fund. Earlier missions have allowed Geostat to produce and disseminate an RPPI for new buildings using the information from one website. Reliable property price indexes and other indicators of real estate markets are critical ingredients for policymakers to assess the state of the real estate market and its potential impact on macroeconomic and financial stability.