IMF committee fails to write joint communiqué amid disagreements over wars

The International Monetary Fund Committee failed to publish a joint communiqué on the results of the spring session of the IMF and the World Bank, due to disagreements among members on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Instead, the IMF published a statement by the head of the organization, which recognized the economic risks associated with conflicts in the world, UNN reports.

The members of the International Monetary and Financial Committee "discussed the global macroeconomic and financial implications of ongoing wars and conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the disruption of shipping in the Red Sea.

Details

Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed Al-Jadaan, who currently chairs the IMF, noted that the geopolitical fragmentation of the global economy generally leads to negative consequences, but some countries benefit from diversifying supply chains that are part of this trend.

While recognizing that the IMFC is not a forum for addressing geopolitical and security issues, and that these issues will be discussed in other forums, the IMFC members recognized that these situations have a significant impact on the global economy. Today's era should be free of wars and conflicts.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said this week's spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington focused on making the global economy more resilient.

What we want is a world where growth is stronger, living standards are higher and low-income countries are not falling. A world that is more resilient to the shocks that will continue to occur.

Georgieva called on countries to "finish the job" of taming inflation while continuing to rebuild fiscal buffers that have been depleted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis.

Representatives of global finance have repeatedly tried to reach an agreement on a consensus communiqué in the two years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Finnish Minister of Finance Rikka Purra explained to reporters after the chairman's statement was released that the Nordic countries unanimously opposed the adoption of the official communiqué because it did not directly mention Russia.

We failed to approve a joint communiqué that does not directly and explicitly mention Russia, which is waging war in Ukraine and has all kinds of economic consequences around the world.