(AGENPARL) - Roma, 15 Aprile 2022 - (AGENPARL) – ven 15 aprile 2022 This year’s meetings are taking place in the shadow of war in Ukraine and rising global challenges due to conflict, Covid and climate change []
FRIDAY APRIL 15, 2022
Welcome to today’s briefing on the 2022 Spring Meetings
In this special edition of the Weekend Read, we spotlight the crisis on top of a crisis besetting the global economy, how trade diversification can reduce losses from supply disruptions, policies to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions while preserving jobs, the benefits of international tax cooperation, Fintech and regulation, and much more as we mark the beginning of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.
(IMAGE: IMF PHOTO)
To safeguard global economic recovery and build resilience, the immediate priorities are to end the war in Ukraine, confront the pandemic, and tackle inflation and debt, the IMF’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.
Speaking in Washington ahead of next week’s Spring Meetings, Georgieva said the world economy faces a “crisis on top of a crisis” and the outlook has deteriorated substantially since the IMF released its previous projections in January, largely because of the war and its repercussions.
Georgieva said the IMF will be projecting a further downgrade in global growth for both 2022 and 2023, with the war contributing to forecast downgrades for 143 economies this year—accounting for 86 percent of global gross domestic product.
“The economic consequences from the war spread fast and far…Hundreds of millions of families were already struggling with lower incomes and higher energy and food prices. The war has made this much worse, and threatens to further increase inequality,” Georgieva said.
“This is a massive setback for the global recovery.”
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While there were significant negative spillover effects of pandemic containment policies on trade partners, these were short-lived, and trade and value chains proved resilient overall. “Our analysis shows that diversification significantly reduces global economic losses in response to supply disruptions,” the authors say. “Higher diversification also reduces volatility when multiple countries are hit by supply shocks.”
(IMAGE: IMF PHOTO/TAMARA MERINO)
Consensus on the need to build a greener economy often founders on concern over potential job losses. It’s one thing to agree that a transition away from fossil fuels is needed. But how easily can a coal miner, say, shift to a job installing solar panels?
Limiting the average global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels will require a transformation of the labor market. “But the overall magnitude of that shift won’t necessarily be as dramatic as it might seem.”
NEXT WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS
MONDAY 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM ET
SPEAKERS: Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF; Malala Yousafzai, Co-founder and Board Chair, Malala Fund; Sabina Bhatia, Deputy Secretary, Secretary’s Department, IMF
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TUESDAY 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM ET
SPEAKERS: Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Chief Economist and Director, Research Department, IMF; Petya Koeva Brooks, Deputy Director, Research Department, IMF; Malhar Nabar, Division Chief, Research Department
TUESDAY 10:30 AM – 11:15 AM ET
SPEAKERS: Tobias Adrian, Director, Monetary and Capital Markets, IMF; Fabio Natalucci, Deputy Director, Monetary and Capital Markets; Ranjit Singh, Assistant Director, Monetary and Capital Markets, IMF
TUESDAY 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM ET
SPEAKERS: David Malpass, President, World Bank; Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF
TUESDAY 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET
SPEAKERS: Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF; Agustín Carstens, General Manager, Bank of International Settlements
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WEDNESDAY 7:00 AM – 7:45 AM ET
SPEAKERS: Vitor Gaspar, Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, IMF; Paolo Mauro, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, IMF; Paulo Medas, Division Chief, Fiscal Affairs Department, IMF
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THURSDAY 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET
SPEAKERS INCLUDE: David Malpass, President, World Bank; Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Finance, Indonesia; Makhtar Diop, Managing Director, IFC; Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, Arab Republic of Egypt; Nicholas Stern, Chair, Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics
(IMAGE: ANYABERKUT/ISTOCK BY GETTY IMAGES)
In a discussion spanning digital “neobanks” banks, long-established fintech firms in the US mortgage sector, and decentralized “DeFi” finance, the authors say that policies targeting fintech and traditional financial firms proportionally are needed. In the case of DeFi, regulations should focus on enabling elements of the crypto ecosystem, such as stablecoin issuers and centralized exchanges, they add.
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