Posted by Mario Pessoa [1]
The Dominican Republic Ministry of Finance, Latin American Treasury Forum (FOTEGAL, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and World Bank jointly organized the sixth annual seminar that took place in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, from August 26-28, 2015. FOTEGAL aims at providing a permanent regional dialogue for technical discussions and exchange of experiences among treasurers. The seminar, also supported by the Government of Switzerland through State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, Economic Cooperation and Development (SECO), is a key component of the IMF’s technical assistance program on treasury management.
Minister of Finance of the Dominican Republic Mr. Simon Lizardo Mezquita emphasized the importance of the forum to exchange experiences on treasury management in the region and to discuss practices to improve public finances for benefiting the population of each country. . Mr. Mario Pessoa, Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, highlighted the importance of good macrofiscal projections on treasury operations. He emphasized the value of strengthening the coordination with macrofiscal units and budgetary offices to anticipate changes in the macroeconomic scenario for better budget planning. The Commissioner of the Bureau of Fiscal Service of the U.S. Treasury, Ms. Sheryl Morrow, also presented on how the U.S. government operates its treasury single account. Other issues discussed were the experience of Southeast Asian countries on treasury management, the impact of capital market operations in treasury management, optimal cash buffers, and treasury performance indicators. The treasurers presented their experiences and discussed ways for developing the treasury systems. Finally, the IMF and IDB launched a book on public financial management in Latin America. The book covers issues related to cash and debt management, treasury single accounts, financial management information systems, public procurement and contracts, accrual accounting, cost accounting, and treasury performance indicators. The book is available in Spanish at http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0000084. The English version will be published in October 2015.
Sixteen Latin American countries participated in the seminar: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Paraguay will host the next FOTEGAL seminar in 2016.
For more information go to FOTEGAL Webpage at: http://fotegal.org/
[2] Deputy Division Chief, Fiscal Affairs Department, Public Financial Management Division, IMF
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