The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has just approved a technical co-operation project for the implementation of UNCTAD´S Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) in Kazakhstan. The budget of the project amounts to US$ 170,404.
The DMFAS Programme provides technical cooperation services in debt management to developing countries and economies in transition. At present, the Programme is cooperating with close to forty countries in all regions of the world and is expanding rapidly. The main component of this assistance is a specialized software package designed to strengthen the technical capacity of countries to record and analyse their external debt. The latest version of the system, the DMFAS 5.0, is a state-of-the-art software system, programmed with ORACLE tools and running under Windows.
In Kazakhstan, the system will be installed in the Ministry of Finance, the Eximbank and the National Bank. The country´s external debt, estimated to be around 3 billion US dollars, is modest compared to many other countries at its level of development. However, it has increased very rapidly (from $ 35 million at the end of 1992) and its management has become problematic. As with other countries of the former Soviet Union, governmental institutions had not dealt with external debt prior to the break-up of the Union. It is now considered essential to improve the capability of the government to effectively manage its external debt.
For the DMFAS Programme, the project in Kazakhstan is the fourth in the CIS-region. Projects are already underway in Belarus, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
