From the Wall Street Journal, February 18:
The Swiss National Bank and the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs are helping the soon-to-be-independent state of South Sudan establish a central bank authority.
Banking and financial officials from South Sudan, an oil-rich area but still one of the least-developed regions in the world, attended a workshop in Zurich this week organized by the Swiss central bank and government, according to a statement released Friday, by the foreign ministry.
The participants included the head of the South Sudan negotiating team on banking and currency, and David Deng Athorbei, the minister for financial and economic planning, the ministry said.
The former heads of the central banks of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro were also present at the SNB workshop to report on the experience of other countries in setting up their monetary institutions, the ministry said.
An overwhelming 99% of the South Sudan population backed a division of Africa’s largest country in a poll conducted earlier this month as part of a peace agreement signed in 2005.