BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 29
By Maryana Akhmedova – Trend:
International Monetary Fund has positively assessed Georgia’s fiscal policy reforms, which led to significant improvements in fiscal outcomes, Trend reports via the IMF’s report on economic outlook of Middle East and Central Asia.
“Georgia has undertaken major reforms to enhance the effectiveness of fiscal policy by strengthening fiscal institutions, reducing corruption, and improving the business climate,” the IMF said.
According to the report, Georgian government has enacted significant reforms of the public sector and fiscal institutions, such as adopting a new budget law, numerical fiscal rules (debt, budget balance, and expenditure rules.
The government of Georgia has also streamlined tax policy and strengthened tax administration with the introduction of e-government taxpayer services and procurement, as well as improved the coverage, analysis, and reporting of fiscal risks.
“The adoption of flexible fiscal rules helped foster fiscal discipline, limited the rise in public debt, and reduced the volatility of government expenditure,”
According to the IMF, a more binding medium-term budget framework would help Georgia to enforce medium-term spending priorities.
Georgian government could improve the oversight and management of public investment and state-owned enterprises in line with the Public Investment Management Assessment recommendations, the report said.
“Further modernization of tax policy and revenue administration would help ensure sustainable revenues and could be achieved by a medium-term revenue strategy for comprehensive tax system reform,” the IMF noted.
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