25 June 2001                                                            Press Release No. G/26/2001

Subregional seminar on macroeconomic policy analysis and modeling
in the economies of Central Asia

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- The Subregional seminar on macroeconomic policy analysis and modeling in the economies of Central Asia was organized by the ESCAP secretariat in cooperation with the Center for Economic Research of the Government of Uzbekistan in Tashkent from 20 to 22 June 2001. The seminar was convened in response to the special request made by the Government of Uzbekistan to shore its experience in developing macroeconomic models for policy analysis and to learn from experiences of other Asian countries such as Bangladesh, India, Japan, and Vietnam in using macroeconomic models for generating policy scenarious or simulations. The seminar served as a  subregional forum for enhancing the awareness of countries from Central Asia of the usefulness and limitations of models based on concrete experiences gained by other Asian economies.

Fifty national experts from Uzbekistan, six representatives from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and international Consultants from Bangladesh, India, Japan and the UNDP office in Vietnam attended the seminar. The officials from the Embassies of Malaysia and Turkey also participated in the meeting.

The seminar discussed five presentations prepared by researchers from the Center for Economic Research and the Ministry of macroeconomics and statistics of Uzbekistan. The topics of presentations were related to experience of Uzbekistan in adapting the SAM-models to the conditions of transitional period, in using the RMSM-X-model in Solution of macroeconomic problems, and in developing its own small size macroeconomic model of the country.

The participants of the seminar drew useful lessons from national experiences of India and Japan in applying models for evaluating some of the key macroeconomic variables. Initial experiences of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in developing macroeconomic models were discussed in the seminar.

On 22 June 2001, a round table was held to discuss a Sustainable Human Development (SHD) model used in Bangladesh and developed for Viet Nam.

The seminar emphasized that the SHD-model could be replicated for Central Asian and Caucasus countries as the model addresses relevant socio-economic issues faced by this group of economies.

The seminar adopted recommendations which could improve national capacities for macroeconomic policy analysis through modeling and requested ESCAP to undertake follow-up activities.

                                                      -- UNIS --