February 19, 2025
IMF chief hails 'productive' talks at end of China visit

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IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva praised the “concrete” talks with Chinese officials, including Premier Li Keqiang.

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has praised “productive and substantive” talks with top Chinese officials as he concluded a visit to the country.

The IMF warned in July that the pandemic was slowing the overall global economic recovery, despite slightly upgrading its outlook for world growth this year.

In China, the world’s second-largest economy, the IMF projects a 5.2 percent expansion in 2023, slightly higher than Beijing’s target of about 5 percent.

However, growth in the Asian nation has stalled in recent months as weak consumer demand, high youth unemployment and distress in the critical asset sector eroded an already lukewarm post-Covid rebound.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday that she had very productive and productive discussions with the Chinese leadership, including Premier Li Qiang, Vice Premier He Lifeng, Central Bank Governor Pan Gongsheng and Finance Minister Liu Kun.

The group talked about “the state of the world economy and developments in China,” Georgieva said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“We talked about the measures the Chinese government is taking to bring forward [growth] target,” said the Bulgarian economist, adding that the target was “important to China [and] important to the world”.

“In a world where so many countries are vulnerable to the shock of Covid and war, it is important that the IMF has the financial strength to help them,” he said.

“I am grateful to China for recognizing the IMF’s role at the center of the global financial safety net,” she said.

Georgieva said she also met the mayor of Shanghai and former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who now heads the New Development Bank, an institution set up by the BRICS emerging economies.

The IMF chief urged China’s policymakers in March to raise productivity and rebalance the economy away from investment and toward more sustainable consumption-driven growth.

Source: www.aljazeera.com

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