By EPN Reporter
MBABANE-Minister for Finance Neal Rijkenberg believes that Version 3 of the Cross Border Foreign Exchange Transaction Reporting System of the Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) is going to improve foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country.
“One of the main areas of focus for the Government is to promote Foreign Direct Investment. It is important, therefore, that the economic environment remains conducive for businesses to operate with minimal impediments,” Rijkenberg said.
The minister said he was proud to say that he had seen the CBE introduce policies to improve the ease of doing business in Eswatini within the exchange control environment. According to the minister, the CBE also removed the bureaucracy to access foreign currency transactions through the introduction of exchange control relaxations.
Over the years, the minister said this resulted in increases in the monetary limits within which transactions were permissible. He stated that a lot of transactions that required prior CBE approval were now actionable by Eswatini’s local Authorized Dealers. This increased the pace of transacting, thus contributing to the ease of doing business, according to Rijkemberg.
Moreover, the minister said the liberalisation of the exchange controls positioned Eswatini as an attractive destination for investors to inject capital, grow their businesses, and contribute to economic growth and development. It further augured well for the Special Economic Zone, said the minister.
These developments, according to the minister, were enabled whilst ensuring that there was no loss of information, as data was accurately captured. This allowed the country to quantify and understand all economic activities, according to Rijkemberg. He believed that the upgrade implemented in the migration to V3, as pronounced by both the Governor and the Deputy Governor, led to increased efficiencies in computing economic data for all beneficiary institutions in the country.
The system had been a central source for international trade data that was utilised by the different stakeholders collaborating with CBE, including the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the Eswatini Revenue Services (ERS). He said it was important that as a country, Eswatini strived to ensure alignment with its neighbours and partners in the region, and with international and regional standards.
“This includes alignment with best practices which emphasizes the need for our data to be comparable with other countries. Statistics is critical not only for comparison with other countries, but it also guides decision-making and informs policy formulation in this instance trade and development policies,” he said.
He further said he was deeply indebted to South Africa for enlisting their support through the Reserve Bank of South Africa to contribute to the country’s efforts in aligning with international standards. Moreover, it was very much commendable that the newly adopted version of the Reporting System enables the Reporting Entities to efficiently reported their daily transactional activities in real-time and in granular form, as articulated by the governor. “I believe that the country can collect current data to document the performance of the economy,” he said.
He affirmed to the nation that Eswatini was open for business. “The Central Bank of Eswatini in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance supports structural reforms to improve external competitiveness and achieve sustainable growth,” Rijkenberg concluded.
