Hidden Bibliographic Details
| Other authors / contributors: | Oshima, Atsushi, author, (IMF staff)
Chawani, Rodgers, author, (IMF staff)
International Monetary Fund. publisher.
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| ISBN: | 9781498371599
1498371590
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| Notes: | "July 2016."
"June 23, 2016; approved by AFR Department; prepared by Anne Oeking, Atsushi Oshima, and Rodgers Chawani"--Page 2 of pdf.
Includes bibliographical references.
Description based on online resource; title from pdf title page (IMF website, viewed September 6, 2016).
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| Summary: | Diversification of Liberia's economy is essential to increase resilience to shocks from commodity price swings, create employment, and provide additional growth drivers. Based on findings of the recent literature on export diversification and growth this note compares Liberia to a benchmark set of countries, considers ways to diversify the Liberian economy, and discusses initiatives to promote export diversification and growth. -- Correspondent banking relationships (CBRs) have served Liberia's banking system well. Thanks to its rapid economic growth averaging 7 percent over the past decade, Liberia has emerged as an attractive destination for trade and investment especially in the mining sector. The end of a civil war created unprecedented opportunities for imports and exports (Figure 1). Yet to take full advantage of these opportunities, importers and exporters rely on local banks being connected to a global trade finance network. CBRs have facilitated access to hard-to-reach markets for corporates and banks through tapping of extensive payments infrastructure. CBRs have also helped mitigate risks for companies that are uncertain of their Liberian counterparty's creditworthiness through payment risk instruments such as letters of credit. With limited lending opportunities, fees and commissions from CBRs have contributed to banks' growing non-interest revenue (60 percent of operating income.
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