New Delhi/Marrakech, Oct 14 (FN Bureau) Noting that 2023 has been a year of continued uncertainties, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday expressed concern about the weak medium term global growth and policy trade-offs confronting policymakers worldwide. In its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), the IMF had noted that several forces are holding back economic recovery with some of them reflecting the long-term consequences of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and increasing geo-economic fragmentation. It projected the global growth to slow down from 3.5% in 2022 to 3% in 2023 and 2.9% in 2024. Attending the Plenary Meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) in Marrakech, Morocco, Sitharaman underlined the need for collective action on shared problems and noted the importance of International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s bilateral surveillance and capacity development in providing tailored advice to members.
“The Union Finance Minister reiterated the importance of IMF quota reforms to ensure an adequately resourced IMF at the centre of Global Financial Safety Net, bolstering IMF’s lending capacity, and support to members through IMF’s lending toolkit to prevent debt crises,” Finance Ministry said in a post on ‘X’. The Minister also highlighted the need for a supportive intellectual property rights (IPR) regime for technology transfer of climate change innovations to developing countries and welcomed the emphasis on the need for global cooperation on the same in IMF Managing Director’s Global Policy Agenda. She supported IMF’s focus on digitalisation, and highlighted that during the G20 Presidency, India has worked towards ensuring that lessons from the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) revolution are shared as a global public good. Sitharaman is currently on an official visit to Marrakech to attend the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings 2023. During the visit, she also participated in the fourth and final meeting of G20 Finance Ministers & Central Bank Governors.