Two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the unemployment rate in the OECD area fell to 5.2% in February 2022 (from 5.3% in January), dropping for the first time below the pre-pandemic rate recorded in February 2020 (see Figure 1) and reaching the lowest level since the start of this data series in 2001. The number of unemployed workers in the OECD area also continued to fall, reaching 34.9 million, 0.7 million below its pre-pandemic level. “The latest drop in unemployment is a continuation of a positive trend and welcome ...

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board approved creation of a new facility to help low-income and most middle-income countries deal with longer-term challenges such as climate change and pandemics. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva announced approval of the new Resilience and Sustainability Trust in a statement after the board meeting, and said it would take effect from May 1, with a goal of raising at least $45 billion. She said the trust would amplify the impact of last year’s $650 billion allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights by allowing richer ...

The war in Ukraine is prompting the International Monetary Fund to cut global growth estimates for both 2022 and 2023 as higher food and energy prices pressure fragile economies, the IMF’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said on Thursday. Georgieva said in a “curtain raiser” speech for next week’s IMF and World Bank spring meetings that the fund would downgrade its growth outlooks for 143 economies representing 86% of global economic output, but said most countries will maintain positive growth. Georgieva, who previously warned that the war would drag on growth ...

Cooperation across countries can raise revenue, tackle inequality, and fight climate change. Technology, globalization, and global warming have changed the world, and taxation must keep pace. With a mouse click, individuals can move money across borders and corporations can transact with their affiliates across global supply chains. Production depends on intangible know-how assets that can be located anywhere. Employers and their employees can work in different countries. As income and factors of production become more mobile, and with climate change threatening our planet, countries face tax challenges that know no ...

The OECD Composite leading indicators (CLIs), designed to anticipate turning points in economic activity relative to trend, point to growth losing momentum in Europe, but a stable growth in other major OECD economies. In the United Kingdom and in euro area as a whole, including Germany, France and Italy, the CLIs anticipate growth losing momentum, driven by a contraction in consumer confidence indicators and the surge of inflation. Among major OECD economies outside Europe, the CLIs remain above trend and continue to signal stable growth in the United States as ...

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on global supply chains but new International Monetary Fund research shows that more diversification of source countries and inputs can significantly reduce the economic drag from supply disruptions. In an analytical chapter of its forthcoming World Economic Outlook, IMF researchers said that countries experienced larger declines of goods imports, and GDP, in the first half of 2020 when trading partners imposed strict COVID-19 lockdowns. Such declines revealed the vulnerabilities of value chains optimized for maximum efficiency and have prompted governments to call for more production ...

Countries around the world should provide $15 billion in grants this year and $10 billion a year thereafter to manage the long-term risks of COVID-19, the International Monetary Fund said in a new staff paper released on Tuesday. The paper, prepared with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Global Fund, and charitable group Wellcome, said a new, more comprehensive approach was needed immediately to strengthen global health systems and limit the already staggering $13.8 trillion cost of the pandemic. “The cost of inaction – for all of us ...

Year-on-year inflation in the OECD area rose to 7.7% in February 2022, compared with 7.2% in January 2022, and just 1.7% in February 2021, reaching its highest rate since December 1990. This increase reflected in part another sharp rise in inflation in Turkey, increasing from 48.7% in January to 54.4% in February. Excluding Turkey, inflation in the OECD area rose to 6.3%, following a rate of 5.8% in January 2022.1 While energy continued to boost inflation in a majority of OECD countries, food price inflation also showed a notable increase. ...

Greece’s economy is expected to expand 3.5% this year due to higher energy prices and the Ukraine crisis, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, lowering a previous 5.4% estimate made last summer. “Growth is expected to remain robust despite the adverse impact of the war in Ukraine and high inflation,” the fund said in a statement after a staff visit to Greece. It said elevated risk aversion and weaker consumer confidence due to higher energy prices might delay investments and dent tourism’s recovery. Its new estimate is lower than ...

Ministers and high-level representatives from the OECD’s 38 member countries and the European Union, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru and Romania, committed in a formal OECD Declaration today to intensify their work on climate and the environment, including doing more to curb biodiversity loss, address plastic pollution, align finance with environmental objectives and accelerate climate change action with a view to keeping the 1.5°C temperature rise limit within reach. The Ministerial Declaration was adopted at the closure of the OECD’s 30-31 March 2022 Environment Ministerial Meeting, attended by ministers ...

The frequency and severity of climate-related disasters are rising faster in the Middle East and Central Asia than anywhere in the world, posing a “major threat” to growth and prosperity, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. A new International Monetary Fund paper showed that climate disasters in the region injured and displaced 7 million people in an average year, causing more than 2,600 deaths and $2 billion in physical damage. “Droughts in North Africa, Somalia and Iran. Epidemics and locust infestations in the Horn of Africa. Severe floods in the ...

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict has added uncertainty to the Asian economy, which already has to battle an Omicron-fueled COVID-19 surge and brace for tighter financial conditions, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official has said. “We are now quantifying the impact through various channels … but we don’t have at this moment the exact number partly because there are still a lot of uncertainties,” Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, told Xinhua in a virtual interview on Friday. Rhee was just nominated as a candidate for South ...

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board on Friday approved a $45 billion program for Argentina after more than a year of negotiations, two sources with direct knowledge said, allowing the South American grains exporter to avoid a costly default with the Washington-based lender. The agreement, which follows a staff-level agreement earlier in March, marks the 22nd IMF program for Argentina since it joined the Fund in 1956. It replaces a failed $57 billion program from 2018, the largest in the Fund’s history, for which Argentina still owes over $40 billion. ...

Global economic growth this year will manage to stay in positive territory despite the war in Ukraine, but a number of countries with already weak economies may be tipped into recession, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. Georgieva told a Foreign Policy magazine forum that the Fund will lower its growth outlook when it releases new forecasts in April. The IMF last forecast 4.4% global growth for 2022 in January, down about a half percentage point from October forecasts, due to ongoing supply disruptions. But shocks from higher ...

Argentina’s $45 billion debt deal with the International Monetary Fund, approved by the country’s Congress on Thursday, now faces its final hurdle: the lender’s own board, which needs to sign off on the mega refinancing agreement. The government struck a staff-level deal with the IMF in early March to replace a failed $57 billion program from 2018 that had been unable to keep the grain-producing country from slipping into economic crisis and a private sector default. The IMF board is set to meet in the coming days to green light ...