The Pacific islands are attracting growing attention from the international development community. First the Asian Development Bank started its Pacific Economic Monitor, then the World Bank started writing more on the region. And now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has jumped on the bandwagon.
The IMF has just released its Asia & Pacific Small States Monitor [pdf]. The inaugural edition of the quarterly monitor focuses on the implications of the revenue from fishing license fees for fiscal policy and provides an overall update on the economies of the small states.
Apart from the usual macro and growth updates, the IMF publication has some fascinating graphs and figures, including the good news that fishing license fee revenue has almost quadrupled for the eight Pacific Island countries which are part of the Nauru Agreement, from about US$60 million in 2010 to US$230 million in 2012.
The graph shows some of the bigger gainers:
