- June 30, 2015
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Current News
The 2015 MEFMI Region Central Bank Governors’ Forum was held in Basel, Switzerland on 27 June 2015. The Forum was held jointly with Investec Asset Management as a financial and technical cooperating partner.
The theme for the Forum was “Leveraging Sovereign Wealth Funds as a Tool for Economic Stabilisation”. The event was attended by 35 officials, 13 of whom were central bank governors and deputy governors. The Forum focused mainly on why the MEFMI region should support the establishment and strengthening of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
Speaking at the event, the MEFMI Executive Director, Dr Caleb Fundanga stated that the choice of the topic for the Forum is in line with developments taking place in the MEFMI Region. He said that countries in the MEFMI region – Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe generate substantial export revenue from natural resources extraction. Other countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are gearing towards tapping from recently discovered oil and gas deposits. He further stated that a viable strategic move that would see countries save the financial benefits from the finite resources was to create sovereign wealth funds.
Dr Fundanga said,”The MEFMI region is richly endowed with natural resources. However, the abundance is not the preserve of the MEFMI region alone. As such, it is incumbent upon decision makers in our region, to contribute towards the prudent management, of revenue from natural resources as these have the potential to contribute towards the economic transformation of the MEFMI region“
The discussions held following the presentations brought to the fore the fact that Africa could be the new growth frontier for sovereign wealth funds. The current slump in global commodity prices provides an opportunity for countries to start laying the foundation for the management of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
In his presentation,Mr Malan Rietveld, Director Investec Investment Institute stated that the slump in commodity prices does not undermine the case for African sovereign wealth funds. He said it strengthens it by underlining the importance of having the right institutions in place. He further pointed out that the uncertainty around commodity prices, which have been highly volatile and unpredicatable provides a reason for the MEFMI region to establish sovereign wealth funds.
”The current commodity price volatility is the reason why sovereign wealth funds are needed. Resource revenues are volatile and unpredictable, requiring institutions and policies that promote stability and long-term thinking“, said Mr Rietveld. He said now is also an opportunity for the MEFMI region to prepare to take advantage of the expected rise in commodity prices and the resultant boom. Strong fiscal rules need to be established before earnings are received from the Sovereign Wealth Funds to avoid discretionary spending.
The major question that the Central Bank Governors were asking at the Forum was, how should countries apply natural resources revenue in order to achieve economic transformation? In numerous instances, countries in the region have competing priorities. With huge infrastructure gaps and investment needs, countries are hard pressed to apply resources to achieve this development agenda. In many cases, there is need to achieve industrialisation while also saving for future generations and stabilising budgets.
Through discussion, there was consensus that there is need to save revenue from depletable natural resources in sovereign wealth funds, for stabilisation and for future generations among other objectives. However, the key policy questions are in the choice of instruments and whether investments should be placed in domestic economy or foreign financial markets each of which has unique characteristics and considerations.
The need to establish the main objective of the sovereign wealth funds is critical as each country will require to determine how much revenue from the resources will be for savings. How much will be for a stabilisation fund and how much will be for an infrastructure or an investment development fund.
The importance of citizen and political consensus in a country to generate buy in is critical. Once those decisions are reached, the next important considerations to be made is with regards to the institutional and legal arrangements to be set up, with clear segregation of duties among the principle and agent. This includes the clear roles of central banks and external fund managers. The Forum recognised that central banks had an advantage of accumulated experience that should be exploited in this area. These critical policy issues were discussed drawing from global experience including the regional successful model from Botswana.
It was underscored that the legal framework must make provisions for immunity and autonomy to agents, in the management of natural resources which provide the safeguards against political patronage. It was also emphasised that explicit rules must be enshrined in the law to govern drawdown of revenue from the fund. It was also underscored that human resources policies must be strengthened to allow for attraction and retention of skilled staff in the management of sovereign wealth funds.
The Forum concluded that sovereign wealth funds are key to the management of natural resources receipts as they are generally well managed even in countries where governance remains a challenge. However it was agreed that there is no straight jacket solution that is applicable to all countries. Africa will have to take a hybrid structure of governance and institutional arrangement which are applicable to unique country settings.
As a way forward, the outcomes of the Forum will be crystalised into a policy paper which will be disseminated to stakeholders and presented during the 2015 MEFMI Combined Forum which will be held in Lima, Peru on 6 October 2015.