Crown Agents hosted a two-day debt management workshop in Macedonia last month, supported and funded by the Crown Agents Foundation.The workshop, which ran from Thursday 26th May to Friday 27th May, 2011, in Skopje, focused on debt management issues affecting countries in the Southeast European (SEE) region and the benefits of using Commonwealth Secretariat debt software.
The British Ambassador in Macedonia, Christopher Yvon, officially opened the event and praised Crown Agents for "addressing the right topics at the right time and helping governments to cope with the difficulties they face in the most effective manner".
Eighteen delegates from five countries in the region attended, including representatives from the Bank of Macedonia and Ministry of Finance; Kosovo Treasury and Kosovo Central Bank; debt management departments in the finance ministries of Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey's Prime Ministry Under secretariat of the Treasury.
Speakers included Crown Agents' senior debt management advisor John Corkill and Thordur Jonasson, senior debt management consultant and from the Commonwealth Secretariat Sanjay Lollbeharree, adviser and IT systems team leader and economist Mariam Tamene.
In a video interview with Macedonia magazine, Kapital, which covered the event, Corkill said that workshops discussions were led by managing debt at a sub-national level as well as central government level, new financing instruments and utilising debt management software.
"To maintain debt sustainability countries need to manage not just central government debt but also debts of the municipalities. A number of countries are also considering procuring debt management software to manage their debt portfolios" he said.
Corkill emphasised that through the implementation of the Commonwealth Secretariat software (CS-DRMS), governments were able to benefit from identifying financial savings in debt service payments; achieving greater accountability and transparency to improve a country's credit rating and making accurate debt service projections in support of the budget process.
One of the highlights of the workshop was the demonstration of an advanced prototype of the Commonwealth Secretariat Public Debt Analytical tool (CS-PDAT), a powerful new software due to be released later this year, which will enable debt analysts to compare, implement and analyse borrowing strategies in light of their financing requirements and economic forecasts.
In September this year, Crown Agents will be showcasing latest developments in the Commonwealth Secretariat debt software suite at the Centre for Excellence in Finance workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which will target CEF country members from the broader SEE region.