CEF Joins Discussions at OECD SBO Meeting

The CEF attended the 9th annual meeting of the OECD Senior Budget Officials (SBO) from Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European countries, held on June 27-28 in Riga. This year's meeting was co-organized with the Ministry of Finance of Latvia.

Budget directors and their deputies from 17 countries discussed their national fiscal consolidation efforts to restore public finances. Officials shared their experience in moving from cash- to accrual-based budgeting and introducing performance information into the budget process with an aim to improve expenditure control. New initiatives to increase budget transparency were also presented.

Dirk Jan Kraan, Regional IMF Public Financial Management Advisor for South East Europe, based at the CEF, led a session on good practices in implementing a medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF). Mr. Kraan highlighted recent trends in using MTEFs, expenditure ceilings and baseline forecasts, and introduced ways of implementing the framework to achieve a sustainable fiscal discipline.