FY2013 Summer Seminar for Central Asian and Caucasian Countries
The Policy Research Institute (PRI) held the FY2013 Summer Seminar for Central Asian and Caucasian Countries in Tokyo from July 25 to August 20, 2013.
As part of Japan’s intellectual support to transitional economies, this seminar is mainly intended to contribute to human resource development in Central Asian and Caucasian countries by accepting young executive candidates from their Ministries of Finance, etc., for about a month and letting them learn about Japan’s fiscal and economic systems, and gain new experiences. This seminar has been held every year since FY2006.
This year the PRI accepted 14 participants from 7 countries: 6 students from the Banking and Finance Academy of the Republic of Uzbekistan (BFA), and one or two officials from each of Republic of Armenia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Georgia, Republic of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. They held lively discussions and made efforts to expand their knowledge throughout the whole seminar, and notably through lectures and their Policy Papers.
The summary of the seminar is as follows.
1. Lectures
In order to pass on Japan’s policies and experiences in economic activities across a wide range of fields, such as finance and tax policy, lectures were given by officials from the Ministry of Finance and relevant bodies, as well as scholars and experts in fields such as economics and finance. In addition, with the aim of deepening participants’ understanding of Japan, lectures on Japanese culture, history and society were given by scholars and experts in each field.
2. Field Trips
The participants visited the practical business of Japan's fiscal and banking-related organizations, such as the Bank of Japan, the Japan Finance Corporation, the Tokyo Ueno Tax Office and the Japan Mint, to better understand Japan’s economic and social circumstances.
3. Country Reports
Each participant presented and discussed the economic circumstances and issues of their respective country. The participants exchanged information on their countries and deepened their mutual understanding.
4. Policy Paper
Researchers and experts in respective fields provided instruction to the participants on topics of their own interest in the field of finance, taxation and so on. All the participants summed up their findings in Policy Papers (see the list below), reflecting what they had learnt from lectures. During the final two days of the seminar, every participant gave a presentation of his or her Paper.
List of Titles of Policy Papers:
“Public debt management issues” （Republic of Armenia）
“External Debt Management of the Kyrgyz Republic”（Kyrgyz Republic）
“Public services of the Republic of Kazakhstan provided to the Tax Committee”
（Republic of Kazakhstan）
“Macroeconomic Forecasting of Government Budget Revenues”（Republic of Uzbekistan）
“Possibilities of unifying Uzbekistan’s taxation system based on foreign experience”
（Republic of Uzbekistan）
“The Influence of Tax Policy On The Pension Systems”（Republic of Armenia）
“Improvement of taxation mechanism of business enterprises”（Republic of Uzbekistan）
“Government Securities Market in Georgia”（Georgia）
“Credit and Financial collaboration of the Republic of Uzbekistan with Financial Institutions of World Community”（Republic of Uzbekistan）
“Improving the mechanism of attracting foreign direct investment to the main branches of national economy”（Republic of Uzbekistan）
“Optimization of non-tax payments of the Kyrgyz Republic‘for example, payment for weight control’”（Kyrgyz Republic）
“Formation of state budget and its deficit”（Republic of Tajikistan）
“Fundamentals of Securities Market Development and Regulation”（Turkmenistan）
“Developing ways of operations with derivatives in foreign exchange market of Uzbekistan” （Republic of Uzbekistan）
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