Reforms intended to create enabling environment

The structural reform programme was focused on civil service rationalisation and privatisation, to strengthen the tax position and enhance economic efficiency. It is also intended to use the ‘oil windfall’ resulting from the current strong price of crude and the strength of the US dollar (in which oil revenue is earned) vis-a-vis the CFA franc to finance humanitarian assistance and reconstruction, so as to support the peace process and improve the economic position generally. Oil revenue, driven by a world oil price averaging around $29 a barrel, is projected to reach 71.7 million - an all-time high of 23 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - this year, according to government and IMF projections. Full implementation of the post-conflict programme would pave the way for the Congo republic to move to a medium-term programme that could be supported by the IMF, including through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (formerly structural adjustment programmes), the agency stated on Friday. “The authorities view the post-conflict programme as a precursor to a more ambitious medium-term programme that would complete the process of creating conditions for private sector- led growth, intensify the fight against poverty and allow access to debt relief,” it added. [for more details of the IMF credit and the government’s recovery programme, see: http://www.imf.org/external/news.htm]