The 2020 High-Level Peer-to-Peer Workshop for Central Bankers from CCA, Moldova and Mongolia

On February 24-26, 2020, the JVI again hosted the regular IMF-JVI-Swiss National Bank (SNB) Peer-to-Peer Workshop for central banks from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Moldova and Mongolia. It brought together experts from the IMF, the SNB, the JVI, the BIS, the ECB, the Austrian National Bank (OeNB), the Czech National Bank (CNB), the Central Bank of Turkey, the Bank of Russia, and central banks in the region—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The central banks of Armenia and Georgia co-led some sessions.

This year’s workshop focused on the IMF’s current work on the “integrated policy framework” (IPF) for monetary and exchange policies. The IPF and the workshop emphasized the importance of coordinating monetary, exchange rate, capital flow management, fiscal, and macroprudential policies. In his keynote presentation, Mr. Tobias Adrian (IMF Financial Counsellor and Director of the IMF Money and Capital Markets Department) outlined the emerging IMF IPF. Representatives of the BIS and the CNB then shared their experience and research on integrated inflation targeting and policy coordination. Separate sessions were dedicated to thorough discussion of country experiences and challenges with foreign exchange interventions, macroprudential policies, and fiscal-monetary coordination.

Among special topics important for central banks in the region, the workshop covered enhancing central bank credibility, drafting inflation-expectations surveys, human resource management, central bank digital currencies, and CCAMTAC—the new IMF Technical Assistance Center for the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia, to be located in Almaty.

The workshop—the fifth annual event—benefitted considerably from frank exchange of the opinions and experiences of participants from the regional central banks, most of whom were at the deputy governor and department manager level. It therefore proved an effective platform for problem analysis, policy discussions, and capacity development in the region. The workshop was well received by the participants, and the series is expected to continue next year.

Information about past IMF-JVI-SNB CCA workshops can be found here: 2019, 2018.

Tibor Hlédik, Lead Economist, JVI
Alexei Miksjuk, Economist, JVI