WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director has urged world to take steps to avoid “2nd Cold War”, adding the countries should do more to prevent the expensive consequences of growing international trade shattering, Western media reported on Thursday.
IMF asks nations to take steps to avoid “Second Cold War”
IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva said during a media talk at the official start of the IMF and World Bank’s spring meetings. She said, “I know what are the costs of a Cold War: it is loss of capacity and contribution to the globe,”. The IMF Managing Director said, “I don’t wish to see that repeating,” saying that the globe should “wisely accept there will be some price, there will be some disintegration, but keep these prices low.”
Kristalina Georgieva was born in Bulgaria, a former Soviet satellite country. She said that the IMF and World Bank have a key role to play in stopping the globe from splintering into different alliance with severe economic costs.
An International Monetary Fund report earlier predicted that rising trade fragmentation resulting from events like the US-China trade war, Brexit, and the Russian attack on Ukraine, could make the world economy as much as 7 percent smaller as compared to past.
The IMF Managing Director said that decisionmakers had a key role to play to defend interests of their people and citizens. She maintained that “If we fail to be more rational and balanced, then citizens everywhere will face the consequences.
The World Bank and IMF’s leaders said that progress had also been made on restocking lending facilities for low-income nations which have been tired by the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic and war in Ukraine.
Georgieva said that KSA, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Japan and Portugal have all already come forward with “considerable new contributions” toward restocking these funds recently. She and head of World Bank warned Thursday that inflation remained high in many nations worldwide.
