By Vivienne Russell | 26 November 2014

The International Monetary Fund has set out plans to bolster the technical assistance and capacity building support for public financial management that it offers to the countries of Lao and Myanmar.

Its technical assistance office for the area has scaled up it support over the past year, rolling out a range of tailor-made training programmes to help strengthen institutional capacity and bring about effective reform.

The advisory committee that oversees the IMF’s Technical Assistance Office for the Lao PDR and the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (TAOLAM) met in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday to review recent activities and set priorities for the coming year.

Priority areas indentified for training and technical assistance include treasury management, monetary operations and government financial statistics.

TAOLAM is based in Bangkok and serves mainly Lao and Myanmar. It is supported by the government of Japan and the Bank of Thailand. Its advisory committee, which is chaired by Pongpen Ruengvirayudh, deputy governor of the Bank of Thailand, includes representatives of the member countries and donors as well as the fund itself.