Mauritius is hosting from 11 to 22 April at the Grand Baie International Conference Centre, a seminar on Macroeconomic Management and Financial Sector Issues (MMF), organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Institute in collaboration with the Regional Multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence (RMCE).
Some 80 participants mostly senior treasury and finance officials from the Sub-Saharan African countries as well as their Mauritian counterparts are attending the seminar. The aim is to help the participants deepen their understanding of financial sector issues and their implication in macroeconomic management. The main focus of the seminar are the analytic and policy issues in the key macroeconomic sectors, the formulation of macroeconomic policies and the main policy aspects of financial markets and their regulation.
The agenda also covers topics such as fiscal sustainability, frameworks for monetary policy, choice of the exchange rate regime, international capital flows as well as the role of the financial sector in the economy and financial sector policies to address financial crises.
Opening the seminar yesterday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Dr Arvin Boolell, stressed that there is a need to improve capacity, surveillance and early warning systems at international, regional and national levels in an era where the economic landscape is changing dramatically owing to multiple shocks affecting the global economy and having wide global economic implications.
Countries such as Africa should adjust and adopt measures and new reforms with regards to the current economic situation, said Dr Boolell, recalling that Mr Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF, recently said that a new economic approach to economic policymaking should be adopted in the wake of the recent global crisis. Mr Boolell further stated that reforming countries like Rwanda, Botswana and Mauritius have intensified the pace of reform with openness to the rest of the world in areas of trade in goods and services and movement of labour and capital, which have helped in building the resilience and in creating more fiscal space to deal with the global economic crisis.
It will be recalled that with a view to transforming the country into a knowledge hub, the Government is working closely with the IMF Institute to strengthen its training and capacity building programme in Africa. In that respect, Mauritius will host the AFRITAC-South (African Regional Technical Assistance Centre) which will serve thirteen countries in the Southern African region. AFRITAC-South is poised to build capacity in the design and implementation of reforms which will be supported by sound macroeconomic and financial policies and strategies.
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