The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that wars, trade tensions, high debt and low growth threaten to prolong a lackluster economic era and leave nations without the resources to reduce poverty and confront climate change. At the same time, national security concerns are driving some of the world’s major economies to pursue domestically focused industrial and protectionist policies.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said global trade is no longer the engine of growth that it once was but was still growing. “Trade has slowed down, but has not gone into reverse,” Georgieva said ahead of IMF and World Bank annual meetings next week.
Despite the warnings, Georgieva noted central banks have successfully wrangled inflation, supply-chain constraints have eased and food and energy prices have moderated. Labor markets in both the U.S. and European Union are cooling in an orderly fashion, she said, calling all of that “a big achievement.”
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