Asia’s biggest economic challenges will be rising debt and capital flight as interest rates continue to rise, the International Monetary Fund has warned. The warnings come as the IMF trimmed its global growth predictions in its latest economic outlook this week and warned the new year would feel like a recession for many parts of the world. “Debt has gone up in Asia,” IMF Deputy Director of Asia and Pacific Department Anne-Marie Gulde told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia”. “First, private sector debt has gone up since the global financial crisis ...

Rising debt levels and mounting fiscal pressures underscore the urgency for more “orderly debt restructuring” efforts to put low-income countries on a more sustainable path, the International Monetary Fund’s fiscal chief said. Fiscal Affairs Director Vitor Gaspar told reporters the problems facing low-income countries had been exacerbated by food and energy shocks and climate disasters, and it was critical to frame policies that would avert social unrest. “The rise of extreme poverty and food insecurity that began before the pandemic should be addressed at the global level by a broad ...

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday rebuked Britain over its planned tax cuts, telling its finance minister and central bank chief that their policies should not be contradictory. Her comments during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington highlighted concerns about financial market turmoil triggered by Britain’s proposed “mini-budget” of increased spending and tax cuts that were threatening to overshadow bigger economic challenges, such as the fight against inflation and the impact of the war in Ukraine. Georgieva told a news conference that she discussed ...

Central banks’ fight against inflation may take another two years to play out, increasing unemployment and lowering living standards for many in the world, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist said. In an interview with Reuters, IMF economic counselor Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said that broad “core” inflation pressures beyond energy and food prices will take time to bring down to central bank targets of about 2%. “Our projection is that this will start coming down, but we will not be back to central bank targets in 2023,” Gourinchas said of inflation. ...

As one of the largest economies and a vital engine of the global economy, China can counteract growth headwinds with the right policies, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said. Given the giant size of the Chinese economy, the significant role that China has been playing in global economic growth and the Chinese economy’s “strong trade linkages in Asia as well as to commodity exporters and major global production hubs in other continents,” Joong Shik Kang, IMF’s deputy China mission chief, offered his views on how China can face economic ...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has doubled down on criticism of the chancellor’s mini-budget, days after warning it will fuel rising prices. The body, which works to stabilise economic growth, admitted tax cuts announced by Kwasi Kwarteng would boost growth in the short-term. But it said the cuts would “complicate the fight” against soaring prices. It expects high prices to last longer in the UK with only Slovakia out of the eurozone set to see higher inflation. Inflation, which measures how the cost of living changes over time, is expected ...

The International Monetary Fund backs moves by governments to tax companies’ excess profits, but believes such changes must be clearly communicated and cannot apply to already realized profits, the IMF’s top fiscal expert told Reuters. Vitor Gaspar, who heads the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, said taxing excess profits could provide permanent revenue for a country’s budget, but the European Union initiative now being considered was “problematic” because it violated tax certainty. Gaspar, a former Portuguese finance minister, said the IMF believed that the tax system should be clear, predictable and ...

After a rapid recovery from the pandemic, the U.S. economy faces significant challenges from surging inflation and slowing economic activity, according to a new OECD report. Growth is projected to slow to 1.5% in 2022 and 0.5% in 2023 with inflation and tight financial conditions weighing on spending. Inflationary pressures – driven by strong demand, supply constraints and rising commodity prices following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine – have broadened, with services inflation now accelerating. Inflationary pressures may prove persistent, prompting additional monetary tightening. Beyond managing immediate economic developments, ...

The International Monetary Fund cut Asia’s economic growth forecasts on Tuesday, with rising inflation forcing many central banks to tighten monetary policy even as exports face the brunt of slowing growth in trade partners such as the United States. The downgrade underscores heightening uncertainty over Asia’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic as darkening growth prospects for the United States, China and the euro zone economies stoke fear of a global recession. Monetary policy divergence from steady U.S. interest rate hikes is likely to continue strengthening the dollar, worsening emerging economies’ ...

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its global growth forecast for 2023 amid colliding pressures from the war in Ukraine, high energy and food prices, inflation and sharply higher interest rates, warning that conditions could worsen significantly next year. The Fund said its latest World Economic Outlook forecasts show that a third of the world economy will likely contract by next year, marking a sobering start to the first in-person IMF and World Bank annual meetings in three years. “The three largest economies, the United States, China and the ...

The OECD Composite Leading Indicators (CLIs), designed to anticipate turning points in economic activity relative to trend with information up to September 2022, continue to indicate slowing growth in the OECD area and in most major economies dragged down by high inflation, increasing interest rates and declining share prices. Among major OECD economies, the CLIs remain below trend and continue to point to slowing growth in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, and also in the euro area including France, Germany and Italy. The CLI for Japan continues ...

The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that global financial stability risks have increased, raising the risk of a disorderly repricing in markets, as it pointed to emerging markets and housing markets as particularly vulnerable. The IMF said that “storm clouds” are looming over the global economy, including persistent inflation, a slowdown in China, and ongoing stresses from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which have driven up the risk of a severe downturn to levels not seen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its latest Global Financial Stability Report, the ...

The annual IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington D.C. from Monday to Saturday will include talks on a number of emerging markets squeezed by rising inflation and borrowing costs against a backdrop of slowing global growth. The economic hit from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to pressures that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic and has led many smaller developing economies to turn to the International Monetary Fund in recent months for help. The IMF has approved programmes or financing facilities for 10 countries since the start of the Ukraine war ...

OECD International Migration Outlook 2022 says that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine generated a historic outflow of people, largely women and children, in Europe fleeing the war. By mid-September 2022, close to 5 million individual refugees from Ukraine had been recorded across the EU and other OECD countries. The slowdown of international migration witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic was reverted in 2021 due to a strong economic recovery, increasing labour needs and a resumption of visa processing. Yet 2022 has been marked by even further flows resulting from Russia’s ...

The unemployment rate in the OECD was broadly stable in August 2022, increasing slightly to 4.9%, after 4.8% in July and 4.9% in June (Figure 1, Table 1). The unemployment rate was below or equal to the pre-pandemic rate in 80% of OECD countries (Figure 2). The number of unemployed workers in the OECD increased slightly for the first time since April 2021, reaching 33.2 million. The OECD unemployment rate was stable for both women and men in August, at 5.1% and 4.7% respectively. However, the OECD unemployment rate for ...