IMF joins economic monitoring party in the Pacific
By Ashlee Betteridge
24 April 2014
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:
About the author/s
Ashlee Betteridge
Ashlee Betteridge was the Manager of the Development Policy Centre until April 2021. She was previously a Research Officer at the centre from 2013-2017. A former journalist, she holds a Master of Public Policy (Development Policy) from ANU and has development experience in Indonesia and Timor-Leste. She now has her own consultancy, Better Things Consulting, and works across several large projects with managing contractors.
