India urgently needs more ambitious structural and financial sector reform measures and a medium-term fiscal consolidation strategy due to the rising debt levels while ensuring a more accommodative fiscal stance in the Budget, the IMF has said. Responding to a question on the Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, International Monetary Fund (IMF) spokesperson Gerry Rice said the economic environment in India is weaker than what the organisation had forecast earlier. “While the Budget touches on ongoing sectoral efforts, there remains an urgent need for more ambitious structural ...

The International Monetary Fund hopes governments and central banks will work on a response to the coronavirus outbreak once the economic impact becomes clear, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Georgieva said the next few weeks would be crucial to build up a “bottom-up” picture of the impact of the virus in China and worldwide. “So then we can agree on synchronised, or even better, coordinated measures to protect the world economy from a more serious shock,” Georgieva told delegates. “Can we do it? ...

China’s economy is expected to remain resilient in the medium- to long-term, although the shorter term impact of the fast-moving coronavirus remains unclear, the International Monetary Fund said. IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said there was still too much uncertainty to forecast the impact on the Chinese and global economy, but the IMF hoped to have more insights when G20 countries meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the end of next week. Concerns about the virus spiked again on Thursday after the Chinese province at the centre of the outbreak reported ...

New economic analysis shows that a proposed solution to the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy under negotiation at the OECD would have a significant positive impact on global tax revenues. The analysis, released yesterday, puts the combined effect of the two-pillar solution under discussion at up to 4% of global corporate income tax (CIT) revenues, or USD 100 billion annually. The revenue gains are broadly similar across high, middle and low-income economies, as a share of corporate tax revenues. The analysis was released just weeks after ...

China has room to ramp up stimulus if its economy slows further due to the coronavirus outbreak, but should not lose sight of structural reforms to address rapid credit growth, a senior International Monetary Fund official said on Wednesday. Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, said China’s growth rate has been moderating even before the outbreak of the coronavirus because of “desirable” steps by its government to deleverage its economy. Beijing will likely rely more on stimulus measures this year to keep its economy afloat, though ...

The OECD unemployment rate remained stable at 5.1% in December 2019. Across the OECD area, 32.6 million people were unemployed, around the level before the financial crisis. In the euro area, the unemployment rate declined to 7.4% in December (from 7.5% in November), the same level as in April 2008, with declines of 0.3 percentage point in Lithuania (to 6.1%) and the Netherlands (to 3.2%), and increases of 0.2 percentage point or more in Latvia (to 6.7%) and Portugal (to 6.9%). Outside Europe, the unemployment rate fell by 0.5 percentage ...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday Gulf Arab states — some of the world’s richest countries — could see their financial wealth depleted in the next 15 years amid lower hydrocarbon revenues if they don’t step up fiscal reforms. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – whose net financial wealth the IMF estimates at $2 trillion – accounts for over one fifth of global oil supply, but economies in the region have been hit hard by a drop in oil prices in 2014 and 2015. While lower crude ...

Annual inflation in the OECD area picked up to 2.1 % in December, compared with 1.8% in November 2019, as energy prices rose by 2.2% following a contraction of (minus) 1.0% in November. Food price inflation as well as annual inflation excluding food and energy were stable in December at 1.6% and 2.1% respectively. Source: OECD

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) supports China’s efforts to tackle the novel coronavirus outbreak, and is confident that China’s economy “remains resilient,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Monday. In a statement on Twitter and a similar one on Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo, the IMF chief expressed that “our deep sympathies to all those affected by the serious situation related to #Coronavirus.” “We support China’s efforts to respond, including recent fiscal, monetary, and financial actions,” Georgieva said. “We are confident that China’s economy remains resilient.” In a recent ...

The international community reaffirmed its commitment to reach a consensus-based long-term solution to the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy, and will continue working toward an agreement by the end of 2020, according to the Statement by the Inclusive Framework on BEPS released by the OECD today. The Inclusive Framework on BEPS, which groups 137 countries and jurisdictions on an equal footing for multilateral negotiation of international tax rules, decided during its Jan. 29-30 meeting to move ahead with a two-pillar negotiation to address the tax challenges ...

The Indian economy experienced some abrupt slowdown in 2019 due to turbulence in non-banking financial institutions and major reform measures such as GST and demonetisation, but it is not in a recession, International Monetary Fund(IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has said. “The Indian economy indeed has experienced an abrupt slowdown in 2019. We had to revise our growth projections, downwards to 4% for last year. We are expecting 5.8%(growth rate) in 2020 and then an upward trajectory to 6.5% in 2021,” Georgieva told a group of journalists in Washington on ...

The International Monetary Fund said it is closely monitoring China’s coronavirus outbreak, but it is too soon to quantify the potential economic impact there of the virus, which is halting tourism and commerce throughout the country. IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told a regular news briefing that the direct impact on consumer and business demand had been most severe in Hubei Province, the outbreak’s epicenter, and the extent of the impact depends on how quickly the virus subsides. Rice added that China has enough fiscal space to support its economy though ...

Italy’s budget deficit will overshoot the government’s 2020 target and public debt will rise in the medium-term as economic growth languishes, the International Monetary Fund said. In the concluding report following the IMF’s annual mission to Rome, the fund urged the Italian authorities to adopt “upfront high quality measures” to consolidate public finances. “It is strongly advisable to take advantage of the current low interest rates to implement credible medium-term consolidation,” the fund said, calling for a budget surplus of 0.5% of gross domestic product by around 2025. It forecast ...

European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, on behalf of the European Union, and International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva concluded a new Financial Framework Partnership Agreement that will boost their cooperation to tackle key challenges including climate change, and help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The European Union is the IMF’s main partner in capacity development since 2016. To mark the signature of the new Agreement, President von der Leyen said: “The European Union and IMF are strong partners. We jointly want to find solutions to global ...

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday urged policymakers to keep a close eye on financial vulnerabilities such as rising debt levels that could pose medium-term risks to the global economy and said further monetary easing was not the answer. The global lender’s most recent economic outlook forecasts a slight rebound of global economic activity this year and next, albeit to a lower level than previously forecast, after global monetary easing helped shore up growth in 2019. The IMF said that global growth would have been 0.5 percentage point lower without ...