April 15 to 26, 2024

From April 15 to April 26, 2024, 33 participants, including 22 from China and 11 from Cambodia, Kyrgyz Republic and Lao PDR, convened in Dalian for the 2-week course on Macroeconometric Forecasting and Analysis. The course was co-organized with the National Bureau of Statistics.

The course was delivered by Mr. Fei Han, Senior Economist from ICD, Mr. John McDermott, Executive Director of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, and Mr. Hui He, Director of CICDC. Mr. Xin Li, IMF Deputy Resident Representative for China, was invited to deliver a guest lecture on the Fund’s latest economic forecasts and policy recommendations for China.

Through the course, government officials gained a rigorous foundation in the estimation of macro-econometric models and their application for nowcasting, forecasting, and policy analysis in central banks, ministries, and public research institutions. Officials were trained on autoregressive integrated moving average models (ARIMA), non-stationarity and unit-roots, vector autoregressive models (VAR), structural VAR (SVAR), vector error correction models (VECM), dynamic factor models (DFM), and forecast evaluation/combination. Through hands-on practice, participants also used data on Asian countries (e.g., China and India) to recreate the challenges and constraints faced in their work. The course was well received.

The course also demonstrated strong synergies with ICD’s macro-frameworks technical assistance (TA) projects, in which several BRI participants were involved. It is expected that the government agencies involved in this course would apply the practical techniques and forecasting models in their future work and policymaking as a result of this course.