Ensuring that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are efficient and managed prudently is important for economic and social reasons. It is also crucial to contain fiscal risks and reduce the burden on taxpayers from recurrent and large bailouts. Governments need to develop stronger capacity to monitor and mitigate the risks from SOEs. We present a risk tool to benchmark the performance of SOEs relative to their peers and assess their vulnerabilities, including through stress tests. A strategy to mitigate risks requires the right incentives for managers to perform and for government agencies to conduct effective oversight. Incorporating SOEs in overall fiscal targets would promote greater fiscal discipline and transparency.
Many governments have faced serious instability as a result of their contingent liabilities. But conventional public finance analysis and institutions fail to address such fiscal risks. This book aims to provide motivation and practical guidance to governments seeking to improve theirmanagement of fiscal risks. The book addresses some of the difficult analytical and institutional challenges that face reformers tooling up to manage government fiscal risks. It discusses the inadequacies of conventional practices as well as recent advances in dealing with fiscal risk.
A number of member countries have expressed interest in advice regarding disclosure and management of fiscal risks (defined as the possibility of deviations of fiscal outcomes from what was expected at the time of the budget or other forecast). This paper analyzes the main sources of fiscal risks and—building on an overview of existing practices in a wide range of countries—provides practical suggestions in this area, including a possible Statement of Fiscal Risks and a set of Guidelines for Fiscal Risk Disclosure and Management.
The size and operation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) can imply significant risks for governments. SOEs are present in virtually every country in the world and are major players in domestic economies and in global markets. In some countries, they number in the thousands and are owned by national or subnational governments. SOEs are among the largest corporations in some advanced economies and comprise a third or more of the largest firms in several emerging markets. Many operate with systematic losses and carry significant liabilities. If SOEs face adverse shocks and financial distress they can impact the government budget or balance sheet through numerous transmission channels. This How to Note describes a newly developed SOE risk assessment tool to help country authorities and IMF country teams. The analysis can provide inputs for annual budgets and medium-term fiscal planning. This includes providing estimates of possible transfers to and from SOEs to the budget and possible financing needs. The note outlines the main steps and elements of the template to assess fiscal risks for governments from individual SOEs. The first step is to collect financial information on SOEs and their relation to the government budget, and to provide a benchmark against other SOEs in similar sectors. A second step is to do a forward-looking analysis based on baseline forecasts and stress scenarios, to identify and analyze possible risks and their impact on government accounts.
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are exposed to significant fiscal risks. This paper analyzes the sources of these fiscal risks in 17 low- and middle-income countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan region, excluding high-income Gulf countries (MENAPEG), and discusses avenues for reform to strengthen fiscal risk management. The materialization of fiscal risks in MENAPEG has been driven by macroeconomic shocks, contingent liabilities, and tail-risk events. The region has a track record of volatile economic growth and sharp exchange rate movements. High dependence on hydrocarbon revenue among MENAPEG oil and gas exporters and pervasive universal subsidies generate considerable budgetary exposure to swings in commodity prices. Substantial government involvement in the economy and large state ownership of firms and banks exposes several MENAPEG countries to contingent liabilities from state-owned enterprises and the financial sector. Lastly, the region’s history of social unrest and conflicts together with tail-risk events such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters and climate change, have been important sources of fiscal risks. Many of the factors historically associated with the materialization of fiscal risks in MENAPEG countries are likely to remain sources of vulnerability in the future, raising the need for robust fiscal risk management frameworks. Policy reform can strengthen fiscal risk management in MENAPEG. This paper describes precedents where progress is made and provides a broad analytical framework for policymakers to build upon to fully embrace fiscal risk management in all its dimensions. Going forward, it is crucial for national authorities to enhance their capacity to identify, quantify, and assess risk factors and their budget’s exposure to them. This should be followed by thorough fiscal risk analysis to inform policy decisions to mitigate risks. Where risks cannot be mitigated or are judged to be acceptable, countries should consider adopting appropriate medium-term fiscal frameworks to build buffers to deal with them.
Many studies have highlighted how failures of public corporations (otherwise known as state-owned enterprises) can result in huge economic and fiscal costs. To contain the risks associated with these costs, an effective regime for the financial supervision and oversight of public corporations should be put in place. This note discusses the legal, institutional, and procedural arrangements that governments need to oversee the financial operations of their public corporations, ensure accountability for their performance, and manage the fiscal risks they present. In particular, it recommends that governments should focus their surveillance on public corporations that are large in relation to the economy, create fiscal risks, are not profitable, are unstable financially, or are heavily dependent on government subsidies or guarantees.
This Technical Assistance Paper on Ukraine highlights that good progress has been made in improving the disclosure and management of fiscal risks since the embedding of fiscal risks in the Budget Code in December 2018. The mission refined the financial model to analyze risks relating to Naftogaz that had been developed on the October 2018 mission. Despite updating the assumptions, the modelling still shows that the anticipated loss of transit gas revenue will have a significant negative impact on the Ukraine budget from January 2020. Appropriate mitigating action could ameliorate this negative impact, but there will still be a significant reduction in the inflows to the budget from Naftogaz. The next steps recommended by the mission include that Naftogaz, Ukrainian Railways and Energoatom models should be discussed with the State-owned Enterprises (SOE) and refined and that coverage should be expanded to include other major SOEs.
This report identifies key governance challenges in the management of fiscal risks and contingent liabilities in Asia and the Pacific arising from public investments through public–private partnerships and state-owned enterprises. It highlights the importance of investment in quality infrastructure to overcome the trilemma of the overall infrastructure investment gap, limited fiscal space, and increasing debt. It shows that such investments need to be efficient—that is, they need to provide the right infrastructure delivering maximum economic benefits at the lowest cost. The report sets out practical insights as a resource for decision-makers.
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.
