JVI Offers First-Ever In-Country Course in Uzbekistan

From October 28 to November 5, 2019, the IMF and JVI delivered, for the first time, a customized in-country course on Financial Programming and Policies (FPP) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The training brought together 36 officials from the country’s macroeconomic agencies in an effort to strengthen inter-agency collaboration and participants’ skills in developing and managing a macroeconomic framework for Uzbekistan’s economy.

A joint IMF-JVI team consisting of Holger Flörkemeier (JVI/IMF), Lawrence Dwight (IMF), and Maria Arakelyan (JVI) visited Tashkent to deliver a customized in-country course on financial programming and policies. The team tailored the course to Uzbekistan data to capture institutional specificities and address issues most relevant for the country. The course aimed to strengthen the participants’ knowledge in macroeconomic frameworks and financial programming and provide them practical tools for policy analysis to simulate economic adjustment under various scenarios.

The training brought together 36 officials from national macroeconomic agencies—the Central Bank of Uzbekistan (CBU), Ministries of Finance (MoF) and Economy (MoE), and the State Statistics (SSC) and Tax Committees. The diversity of the participants was a great asset for the course as it allowed sharing views and expertise from various backgrounds and encouraged dialogue and policy discussions across these institutions. Participants very much appreciated the opportunity to discuss economic issues and policies with their peers from other institutions.

The collaboration of the IMF-JVI team with the country officials participating in the course proved to be very fruitful. Discussions with the participants helped the team to adapt and customize the initial macro framework to better capture the specificities of the economy. The participants and senior management expressed strong interest in further developing their macro frameworks using the knowledge gained during the course.

Following one week of hard work and lively discussions, participants presented their policy analysis and recommendations for Uzbekistan to CBU and ministry of finance colleagues and senior management. The latter were impressed by the amount of work the participants of the course accomplished during such limited time. The course and presentations were also widely covered in the local media.

The local IMF office also organized a well-attended JVI Alumni reception in Tashkent that offered a chance to mingle, reconnect, and share experiences with and expectations for the JVI’s regular training program. The number of officials from Uzbekistan attending JVI training in Vienna has risen substantially in recent years, making Uzbekistan one of the top five participant countries among the 31 JVI-eligible countries in 2019.

Maria Arakelyan, Economist, JVI