Western Hemisphere > Anguilla

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International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) focuses on efficient, sustainable, and fair pension schemes. Despite recent reform efforts, the financial sustainability of the ECCU’s defined benefit social security schemes remains under strain, largely reflecting the still relatively low contributions and generous payouts. This, coupled with a rapidly ageing population and high labor market informality, increases the need for a comprehensive review and adoption of further parametric and non-parametric reforms of the pension systems to avoid abrupt and more sizable adjustments in the future as well as to reduce the risks of old-age poverty. This annex reviews pension schemes in the ECCU, with a focus on assessing their design and performance and identifying policy options to improve their efficiency, fairness, and sustainability. Key recommendations include swift adoption of further comprehensive reforms to address design weaknesses, improving coverage, investment strategy, administrative efficiency, and transparency, and establishing automatic adjustment mechanisms.
Mr. A. E. Wayne Mitchell, Ann Marie Wickham, and Mr. Manuel Rosales Torres
The quality and stock of infrastructure vary widely across countries of the Eastern Carribbean Currency Union and are inadequate to achieve the desired higher growth and social development. Given relatively low investment rates in the region, one solution is to invest more. However this paper shows that governments can also narrow their infrastructure and service gaps significantly by improving expenditure efficiency and strengthening public investment management systems.
International Monetary Fund
The downturn has accentuated strains on the financial system of Anguilla. The 2011 Article IV Consultation highlights that the growth outlook is improving with major tourism projects getting back on course, although a slow recovery is only expected to begin in 2012. Executive Directors have emphasized that a new fiscal framework is needed with an appropriate balance between current and capital expenditure and in line with the resources available. Fiscal policy should be designed to meet the combined objectives of debt sustainability, deficit reduction, and long-term economic growth.
International Monetary Fund
Real regional gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 6 percent in 2009, reflecting a collapse in tourist arrivals and foreign direct investment (FDI)-financed construction activity. The global financial and economic crisis has also exposed areas of significant weaknesses, notwithstanding reforms implemented by a number of member countries. Executive Directors concurred that the urgent challenge is fiscal consolidation. They noted IMF staff’s assessment that the real effective exchange rate (REER) appears broadly in line with current fundamentals.
International Monetary Fund
This paper discusses key findings of the 2006 Regional Discussions on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. Fiscal revenues have improved, but there has been only a modest improvement in the fiscal and debt positions. Tax revenues have strengthened with the uptick in economic activity, administrative efforts, and tax reforms. The financial system has been resilient, but additional efforts are needed to strengthen the supervisory framework in the face of emerging risks. Progress continues to be made in implementing the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) recommendations, but there is a need to ensure enforcement of the new regulatory framework.
International Monetary Fund
The staff report for the 2004 Regional Surveillance on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) focuses on the economic developments and near-term prospects. The fiscal position of the governments in the region has deteriorated sharply in recent years and resulted in a marked increase in public sector debt. Efforts in the region have focused on strengthening the supervisory and regulatory regimes in both the domestic banking sector and the offshore financial sector. Enhanced regional cooperation could also help broaden markets and provide opportunities to achieve economies of scale.
Mrs. Ruby Randall, Mr. Jorge Shepherd, Mr. Frits Van Beek, Mr. J. R. Rosales, and Ms. Mayra Rebecca Zermeno

Abstract

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank is one of just a few regional central banks in the world and the only one where the member countries have pooled all their foreign reserves, the convertability of the common currency is fully self-supported, and the parity of the exchange rate has not changed. This occasional paper reviews recent developments, policy issues, and institutional arrangements in the member countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, and looks at the regional financial system, its supervision, and the central bank's initiatives to establish a single financial space. The paper includes a large amount of statistical information that is not readily available elsewhere from a single source.