This regional event, funded by the Switzerland State Secretariat on Economic Affairs (SECO), represent the continuation of the project »Improve Capacity for Government Finance Statistics (GFS) in Southeastern European Countries«. It will be organized for the 5th year in an ongoing series. The project involves five countries in the SEE region: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

The specific objectives of the GFS in SEE workshop are to (i) illustrate GFS in the context of the IMF Fiscal Monitor, especially the public sector balance sheet;  (ii) explain the methodology and implementation of the Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG); (iii) explain other key methodology issues, including recently developed Eurostat guidance; and (iv) explain the so-called ‘stock-flow reconciliation’ between Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) deficit and debt, as compiles in EDP notification tables 3.

Target Audience

The target audience includes finance officials from central banks, ministries of finance and statistical offices who are responsible for compiling fiscal statistics.

This workshop is by invitation only.

Lecturers

The learning initiative will be delivered under the guidance of:

• Deon Florian Tanzer- IMF GFS Advisor

Deon is the IMF Resident Advisor for South East Europe covering GFS, based at the CEF in Ljubljana since September 2016. He joined the IMF at the end of 2013, after working for Statistics Netherlands for 7 years, mostly as a senior statistician in the Government Finance Statistics department.  He attained his Master of Arts, majoring in development economics and transitional economics in 1999 from the University of Amsterdam. He also has experience as a labor market researcher for Ecorys Netherlands.

• Philip Stokoe, IMF

Phil Stokoe joined the IMF in September 2013 as an economist in the Government Finance division of the Statistics Department. Previously, he worked as an economist at the UK Office for National Statistics, within the Public Sector Division. He was the Head of National Accounts Classification Branch, and was responsible for classification decisions for both institutional units and transactions in the UK national accounts and public sector finances. He was an active member of the European Union Financial Accounts Working Group and a member of the IMF GFS Advisory Committee that assisted in the preparation of the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014.

• Laura Wahrig, EUROSTAT
• Kurt Weiss, EUROSTAT

 

Partners

This learning initiative was supported by: