The Ugandan government has formed a National Balance of Payments Committee aimed at improving collaboration among key institutions involved in producing Balance of Payments (BOP) and International Investment Position (IIP) statistics. The committee’s membership will include representatives from pivotal institutions such as Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), Bank of Uganda (BoU), Uganda Revenue Authority, Uganda Investment Authority, Uganda Manufacturers Association, Finance Ministry, Economic Policy Research Centre, Uganda Securities Exchange, and Private Sector Foundation Uganda.
The initiative comes in response to challenges faced by institutions like Ubos and BoU in compiling statistical data due to the omission of required information from some agencies. Ms Aliziki Kaudha Lubega, the Director of Macroeconomic Statistics at Ubos, emphasized the need for accurate statistics to facilitate the compilation of BOP.
Balance of Payments statistics, along with International Investment Position data, are crucial inputs for economic policy formulation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlights their importance, emphasizing that monetary authorities should possess sufficient policy instruments to address shocks from domestic or foreign sources based on the net IIP.
In the central bank’s quarterly monetary policy report of October 2023, it was noted that Uganda’s current account deficit, although high at $1.082 billion in the three months to August 2023, was 10.8% narrower than the same period the previous year. The financial account surplus, exceeding the current account deficit at $1.384 billion, resulted in an overall balance of payments surplus of $384.0 million during the review period.
This surplus allowed the Bank of Uganda to build international reserves of the same magnitude, reaching $3.974 billion by the end of August 2023.
