Press Release on the Launch of Economic Early Warning System

The Hon’ble Finance Minister, Lyonpo Namgay Dorji launched the Economic Early Warning System for Bhutan. Also present were Cyn-Young Park (Director, ADB), Yoichiro Ishihara (Resident Representative, World Bank) and officials from ADB, the Ministry of Finance and other key economic agencies.

The development of an Economic Early Warning System (EWS) for Bhutan is one of the initiatives undertaken towards strengthening macroeconomic monitoring and surveillance in the country. The economy’s long term growth prospects of becoming more resilient to adverse economic shocks and being informed of increases in the level of exposure to these shocks is a prerequisite to achieve a sustainable economic growth. Strengthening macroeconomic monitoring and surveillance is crucial to ensure both short and longer term macroeconomic stability which is a key objective of Bhutan’s guiding policy founded on the principles of Gross National Happiness.
An early warning system (EWS) is a mechanism that captures symptoms of any event that is adverse to the economy in advance and can be used to track economic crisis, thereby signaling future crises. It constitutes important tool for authorities to implement optimal policies to prevent or at least attenuate the impact of an economic turmoil. To predict a crisis, policy makers must understand its potential causes and the development of EWS, tailored to Bhutanese economy is expected to assist in timely detection and mitigation.

The system has been developed through the joint collaboration between the Asian Development Bank and Knowledge Sharing Program, the Republic of Korea.
Two day familiarization workshop on EWS was also organized for the members of Macroeconomic Framework Coordination Technical Committee (MFCTC) following the launch.

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