Powerful IMF team arrives today 

Fri, 05 May 2017 10:15:13 +0000

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU

 A HIGH-POWERED team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by first deputy managing director David Lipton and its African Department director, Abebe Selassie, arrive in Livingstone today for a high-level conference on Managing Capital Flows in Developing and Low-Income Countries.

The conference would also discuss recent trends and behaviour of capital flows to low-income countries in the current scenario of fragile global economic condi-tions.

Speakers, panellists and delegates at the Livingstone conference will be drawn from the United States, Kenya, Cameroon, Mozambique, India, Chile, United Kingdom, South Africa and Zambia.

The conference is intended to explore the landscape on policy challenges in managing capital flows in a globalised environment and interrogate policy tools that could be deployed to manage the challenges posed by capital flows: macroe-conomic policies; macro-prudential policy; and capital controls.

The Cameroon delegation is led by that country’s Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, while Zambia will be represented by Finance minister Felix Mu-tati, Economic Management and Finance permanent secretary Mukuli Chikuba and Bank of Zambia Governor Denny Kalyalya.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Finance public relations and media head, Chileshe Kandeta, the event in Livingstone was also a learning plat-form on reforms which had been implemented towards improving capital flows.

Commenting on the development, Mr Mutati said the conference would provide an opportunity for establishing ways of replicating best practices behind success-ful and bigger capital flows in developing and low-income countries.

“The Livingstone conference is a confirmation that Zambia has not only become the preferred destination for conference tourism, but it is also a point of focus for the international financial and monetary community.  ‘‘This is due to the positive demonstration effect which Zambia had in interna-tional events such as the recently held IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings,” he said.