By Richard Johnstone | 14 August 2013
A group of Latin American countries has pledged to co-operate to improve treasury management across the continent.
In a meeting held in Guatemala last week, the 15 members of the Latin American Treasury Forum discussed best practice and ways to improve treasury operations to ensure efficient, transparent and well-governed systems.
The meeting was hosted by the Guatemala Ministry of Public Finance, along with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. The IMF published minutes of the event yesterday.
During the session Mario Pessoa, the deputy division chief in the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, urged countries to integrate and co-ordinate cash and debt management, and to improve co-ordination between governments and central banks.
Additionally, he emphasised the need to strengthen risk management and fiscal risk reporting, including the development of ‘single accounts’ for government treasuries.
The full list of countries in attendance was: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay.
The seminar was opened by Guatemala’s vice minister of public finance María Concepción Castro, who reiterated the forum's effectiveness as a way to exchange expertise since it was formed in 2010. The forum will next meet in Uruguay in 2014.
