The Directorate General of the Treasury and Public Accounts of Côte d'Ivoire, which began the balance of payments survey for the year 2019 in July 2019, is raising awareness and training the actors concerned online, according to a note sent Monday to APA.

For the Ivorian Treasury, the current context of health crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic should not prevent this year from carrying out the 2019 balance of payments survey. With this in mind, it has deployed means of communication to reach the actors.

As a result, the General Directorate of the Treasury, in collaboration with the national management of the BCEAO, has decided to inform stakeholders through various channels of the importance of the balance of payments survey which started in July 2020 and on the need for their contribution to its success.

“This year, in the absence of being able to organize the traditional face-to-face launch day, due to the health crisis linked to Covid 19, we have put a video element online, through the Public Treasury website (www.tresor .gouv.ci)”, indicated Mr. Savané Mory, Director of Credit Institutions and External Finance (DECFinEx).

According to Mr. Savané, this aims "a better understanding, by the actors concerned, of the questionnaires and their method of information". In addition, TV and radio spots, articles via the national press and websites will be necessary, in order to best convey all the information related to the smooth running of the investigation.

He pointed out that the sensitization of the respondents which is in progress, consists in presenting to the various actors intervening directly or indirectly in the financial relations between Côte d'Ivoire and abroad, the content of the questionnaires designed according to the typology of the activity of the various economic agents and give them explanations on how to inform them properly.

This approach also aims to present and explain the technical notice for declarants. Are concerned by this survey, the operations carried out for the 2019 financial year by the institutional, administrative and monetary authorities, the authorized intermediaries.

Financial intermediaries, professional organizations and other private sector actors, in particular importers and exporters of goods and services, development partners, representations of international organizations and international NGOs are also targeted.

Explaining the interest of this tool, Mr. Jacques Konan Assahoré, Director General of the Treasury and Public Accounting, who is also Chairman of the Balance of Payments Committee, declared that this "statistical information plays an important role in monitoring and the analysis of the socio-economic situation of a country because it makes it possible to identify the realities and the evolutions likely to better direct the measures of social and economic policies”.

The balance of payments is a statistical statement that traces, in accounting form, all the flows of real, financial and monetary assets between residents of an economy and non-residents, during a given period.

It makes it possible to assess the integration of the economy into its external environment, to identify the appearance of imbalances and to understand how these imbalances are financed by the rest of the world. It is also a contributory source for the development of certain national aggregates and thus appears as an essential element of national statistics.

After a response rate of 89.9% recorded in 2018, a record of 93% was reached in 2019 at the end of the survey to collect the data necessary for establishing the 2018 balance of payments, continues the note.

This result was notably obtained thanks to a combination of actions including support provided to the Technical Secretariat of the Balance of Payments Committee (BCEAO) and the strengthening of respondents' awareness.

The data collected thanks to the collaboration of the respondents made it possible to draw up, within the regulatory deadline, the 2018 balance of payments. The overall balance of the 2018 balance of payments showed a surplus of 284.6 billion FCFA, unlike the deficit of 3 .6 billion recorded in 2017.

A Balance of Payments Committee chaired by the Minister in charge of Finance or his representative is established, as a matter of custom, in each Member State of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA).

This committee's mission is to seek methods to improve the collection of data necessary for establishing the balance of payments and the international investment position, to publish statistics on the balance of payments and the international investment position of each l 'Member state.

In Côte d'Ivoire, the Balance of Payments Committee is chaired by the Director General of the Treasury and Public Accounts and the Technical Secretariat is provided by the national management of the BCEAO.