The General Directorate of Cote d’Ivoire’s Treasury and Public Accounts, which launched in July 2020 the Survey of the Balance of Payments for 2019, is sensitizing and giving online training for the actors concerned, according to a note sent to APA on Monday.
For the Ivorian Treasury, the current context of the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic should not prevent the analysis of the 2019 balance of payments this year. To this end, it has deployed means of communication to reach the actors.
As a result, the Directorate General of the Treasury, in collaboration with the National Office of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), has decided to inform stakeholders via various channels about the importance of the balance of payments survey, which started in July 2020 and on the need for their contribution to its success.
“This year, as we were unable to organize the traditional face-to-face launch day, due to the health crisis caused by the Covid 19, we have posted a video online, through the website of the Public Treasury (www.tresor .gouv.ci) ”, said Mr. Savane Mory, Director of credit institutions and external finance (DECFinEx).
According to Mr. Savane, this training seeks “a better understanding, by the actors concerned, of the questionnaires and their method of information.” In addition, TV and radio spots, articles via the national press and websites will be necessary, in order to best convey all the information related to the proper conduct of the investigation.
He observed that the awareness-raising of the respondents, which is underway, consists in presenting to the various actors intervening directly or indirectly in the financial relations between Cote d’Ivoire and the rest of the world, the content of the questionnaires designed according to the typology of the activity of the various economic agents and give them explanations on how to inform them properly.
This approach also aims to present and explain the technical notice for registrants. This survey concerns operations carried out for the 2019 financial year by institutional, administrative and monetary authorities, as well as authorized intermediaries.
Financial intermediaries, professional organizations and other actors of the private sector, in particular importers and exporters of goods and services, development partners, representations of international organizations and international NGOs are also targeted.
Explaining the interest of this tool, Mr. Jacques Konan Assahore, Director General of the Treasury and Public Accounts, also President of the Balance of Payments Committee, declared that this “statistical information plays an important role in monitoring and the analysis of the socio-economic situation of a country because it makes it possible to identify the realities and the evolutions likely to better orient the measures of social and economic policies.”
The balance of payments is a statistical statement which traces, in accounting form, all the flows of real, financial and monetary assets between residents of an economy and non-residents, during a given period.
It makes it possible to assess the integration of the economy into its external environment, to identify the appearance of imbalances and understand how these imbalances are funded by the rest of the world. It is also a contributing source in the preparation of certain national aggregates and thus appears to be an essential element of national statistics.
After a response rate of 89.9 percent recorded in 2018, a record 93 percent was reached in 2019 following the survey to collect the data necessary for the establishment of the 2018 balance of payments, the note added.
This result was notably obtained thanks to a combination of actions including support provided to the Technical Secretariat of the Balance of Payments Committee (BCEAO) and the strengthening of respondents’ awareness.
The data collected thanks to the collaboration of the respondents made it possible to draw up, within the regulatory deadline, the 2018 balance of payments. The overall balance of the 2018 balance of payments showed a surplus of 284.6 billion CFA francs, unlike the deficit of 3.6 billion CFA francs recorded in 2017.
A Balance of Payments Committee chaired by the Minister in charge of Finance or his representative is usually set up in each member State of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA).
The mission of this committee is to find the appropriate methods to improve the collection of the data necessary for the establishment of the balance of payments and the international investment position, to publish statistics on the balance of payments and the international investment position of each member State.
In Cote d’Ivoire, the Balance of Payments Committee is chaired by the Director General of the Treasury and Public Accounts and the Technical Secretariat is provided by the National Office of the BCEAO.
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