ECCB 2023-2024 Annual Report

EASTERN CARIBBEAN CENTRAL BANK ANNUAL REPORT 2023 - 2024

completed and published on the ECCB’s website, and the IMF’s ICS. For clarity and transparency, a technical note on the back-casted estimates was also prepared and published on the ECCB’s website. ECCB staff participated in the CARTAC missions aimed at enhancing the ESS through the training of compilers within the ECCU and through stakeholder engagements to discuss and address existing data gaps and coverage issues. The ECCB also collaborated with partner agencies (OECS Commission, CARICOM and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development-UNCTAD) on trade in services projects in the region, aimed at enhancing statistics for evidence-based policymaking and strengthening economic resilience. Continued collaboration on those projects is anticipated. Dissemination of revised BOP, International Investment Position Statistics and Trade in Services Statistics, with projections up to 2024, were released in March 2024. Furthermore, the Bank focused on the revision of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecasts for 2023 to 2025. The Bank collaborated with staff in most of its member countries to host consultative discussions on the GDP forecasts in January 2024 and the roll-out of the rebased GDP with base year 2018. The GDP estimates will be rebased using a 2018 base (reference) year, corresponding to the fixed price structure, to more appropriately reflect the existing structure of ECCU economies. During the financial year Antigua and Barbuda became the third member country to convert its GDP series to base year 2018.

the extensive exercise to incorporate the base year 2018 GDP data into the SAS economic database. During the consultative meetings with the ECCU Directors of Statistics in May 2023, member countries were again encouraged to release their Base Year 2018 GDP estimates on completion. The Bank, to support macro-economic analysis, conducted the Bi-annual Business Outlook Survey (BOS) in July 2023 and January 2024. The BOS infographic is disseminated to the public via social media and emailed to major stakeholders. As part of its data dissemination and awareness campaign, the Bank released its monthly infographic on comparative fuel prices in the ECCU. Given the focus and importance of Food Security and the 25 by 25 Agenda in the region, work on the Import Bill Tracker also intensified during the year. The fuel information and the Import Bill tracker data are widely used internally and externally to inform policy discussions. S ociety for W orldwide I nterbank F inancial T elecommunications (SWIFT) C ustomer S ecurity P rogram (CSP) A ssessment and A ttestation As part of the SWIFT Customer Security Controls Framework (CSCF), users of SWIFT are required to attest that in-place SWIFT architecture and components align with the CSCF on an annual basis. SWIFT also requires that an independent assessment supports this yearly attestation. In the year under review, an external entity performed this independent assessment INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SYSTEMS

The National Accounts and SAS Team advanced

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