ECCB 2015/2016 Annual Report

EASTERN CARIBBEAN CENTRAL BANK

Over the period June to December 2015, preliminary balance of payments, international investment position and trade in services statistics were compiled for the member countries, the ECCU and the ECCB. The Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC) provided technical and financial support towards the revision exercise in 2015. The programme for finalising the estimates included two workshops of two-week’s duration with the CARTAC External Sector Statistics (ESS) Adviser during August to October 2015 and a review seminar with ECCU BOP Compilers in October 2015 to discuss country- specific results and solicit feedback on challenges with the new processes for the compilation of external sector statistics. The external sector statistics were released to the public in January 2016, accompanied by a technical note which outlined some of the major changes in the accounts. The comments received from the CARTAC ESS Adviser and ECCU BOP compilers prompted another round of revisions to the BOP survey instruments and the Excel-based data entry medium used for compilation of the external sector statistics. The Bank launched the revised Balance of Payments (BOP) survey instruments and completed the Excel-based medium used for compilation of the statistics.

Canada-Eastern Caribbean Debt Management Advisory Service (CANEC-DMAS) Project The ECCB remained committed to helping ECCU countries address the debt issues within the region. The Bank, through the Canada-Eastern Caribbean Debt Management Advisory Service (CANEC- DMAS) Project, advanced its capacity building initiatives on debt management. The CANEC- DMAS Project, which is funded by the Government of Canada through an agreement with Global Affairs Canada (formerly CIDA), has been providing training and technical assistance to the ECCU countries since November 2009. One of the objectives of the training provided through the CANEC-DMAS Project is to create a pool of experts in debt management who can be utilised to provide training and technical assistance throughout the ECCU, even past the project’s end date of June 2017. Throughout the year, the Bank has, with the complete support of the ECCU member governments, included cross border participation from ECCU officers in country specific missions. Throughout the year, member countries received assistance with updating the core debt management tools needed to plan, analyse, monitor and forecast their debt requirements adequately. The ECCB continued to provide training and technical assistance on key debt tools such as Medium Term Debt Management Strategies (MTDS), Debt Sustainability Analyses (DSA), and Debt Portfolio Reviews (DPR). Debt managers from the ECCU countries also received training on The World Bank revised Debt Management Performance Assessment (DeMPA) Toolkit during a Trainer of Trainers workshop held from 20 - 24 July

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ECCB A nnual R eport 2015/2016