The 2024 High-Level Peer-to-Peer Workshop for Central Bankers from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Moldova, and Mongolia

The 9th International Monetary Fund (IMF)-Swiss National Bank (SNB)-Joint Vienna Institute (JVI) peer-to-peer workshop for central bank practitioners from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Moldova, and Mongolia (CCAMM) was held in Vienna on June 18-19, 2024. The workshop was attended by 27 senior central bank officials from all ten countries and featured presentations by staff from the IMF, the JVI, and the SNB, as well as by country participants and several external speakers from the Austrian National Bank (OeNB), Bank for International Settlements (BIS), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Central Bank (ECB), National Bank of North Macedonia, and the University of Virginia. For the first time, the IMF’s Capacity Development Center for the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia (CCAMTAC) was an official sponsor of the event. 

The sessions this year covered the following topics: (i) The economic outlook in the CCAMM region and its implications for central banks; (ii) the macroeconomic implications of geopolitical and economic fragmentation at the global and CCAMM level; (iii) the macroeconomic implications of artificial intelligence, and its impact on central banks; (iv) the implications of the green transition for monetary policy; (v) the effect of central bank independence on inflation expectations and macroeconomic performance, and how to protect this independence; (vi) Central Bank Digital Currencies; and (vii) advances in the IMF’s Integrated Policy Framework, which considers the roles of monetary policy, foreign exchange interventions, macroprudential measures, and capital flow management measures in responding to economic shocks, and their interactions with each other and other policies. As is customary in this workshop, the discussions on the various topics among participants, most of whom are central bank deputy governors and department directors, were candid and rich, with a lot of peer-learning happening during and outside the sessions.

The 10th CCAMM workshop is expected to take place in Vienna in 2025.

Hervé Joly, Director, Joint Vienna Institute