IMF’s Georgieva to discuss economy, COVID with Chinese authorities By Reuters

By Andrea Shalal

NEW YORK (Reuters) -International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday that she will travel to Beijing next week with heads of other international institutions to discuss China’s economic, COVID-19 and debt relief policies with the country’s leadership.

“This is the first time, hopefully, we will be able to sit together and discuss the very pressing issues that China, and the world are faced with,” Georgieva told the Reuters NEXT conference.

Georgieva said that during the Beijing meetings she intends to discuss ways to accelerate China’s participation in debt relief for poor and developing countries as the world’s largest official bilateral creditor.

“I am very hopeful that when we have a chance next week to discuss these issues, we will continue on a path of finding better solutions and strengthening the capacity of the common framework to deliver,” she said, referring to G20 countries’ slow-to-launch common debt restructuring framework.

She said that she hoped that China out of “enlightened self-interest” would strive to prevent debt issues in developing countries from deepening and spilling over to a global debt crisis that would inflict pain on borrowing countries but also negatively affect creditor countries, especially China.

Georgieva also said that China’s COVID-19 restrictions and turmoil in it vast property sector have brought China’s projected growth rate back to 3.2% for next year — barely above global averages and a phenomenon not seen during the past 40 years.

“We have relied on China for a significant increase in global growth,” Georgieva said. “Some 35% to 40% of global growth used to come from China’s growth and this is not the case now, and it’s not going to be the case next year,” Georgieva said.

To view the Reuters NEXT conference live on Dec. 1, please click here.