Observing that the human costs of the coronavirus pandemic are already immeasurable, the IMF on Monday said the world is headed towards a recession at least as bad as during the global financial crisis or worse.
The IMF has said it has reached an agreement with the Pakistani authorities "on policies and reforms" needed to complete the second review of the USD 6 billion loan approved for the cash-strapped country's fragile economy, a media report said on Friday.
The country's foreign exchange reserves swelled by USD 3.091 billion to a lifetime high of USD 476.092 billion in the week to February 14, mainly due to a rise in foreign currency assets, according to the RBI data.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Pakistan has asked Islamabad to curb its reliance on China. The IMF has asked the Pakistani government to 'reduce its trade and commerce reliance on Beijing and look for other international options by signing free trade agreements (FTA)'.
India urgently needs more ambitious structural and financial sector reform measures and a medium-term fiscal consolidation strategy due to the rising debt levels, says IMF.
The IMF has said that Sri Lanka’s economy is gradually recovering from Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in 2019 with GDP growth projected at 3.7 per cent in 2020.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said he won't be surprised if GDP growth goes even lower after IMF lowered India's economic growth estimate for the current fiscal to 4.8 percent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday lowered growth estimate for India to 4.8 per cent for 2019, citing stress in the non-bank financial sector and weak rural income growth as the major factors for the downward revision.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday slightly revised downwards the growth outlook for the global economy and flagged fundamental issues of reform in trade systems.
The Washington-based lender, after the first review, posed trust on continuity of IMF-backed reforms needed to bring Pakistan's economy on the stability path. But, it cautioned against fiscal slippages with risks to reforms remaining elevated. The growth was projected to further slide to 2.4 per cent in the current fiscal year from 3.3 percent in the last fiscal of 2018/19, The News International reported.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that India's high growth rate in recent years did not lead to a matching increase in formal sector jobs and labour market participation has declined. The IMF's report on its annual consultations with India released in Washington on Monday said that while India has lifted millions out of poverty as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, "recent labour market data suggests that unemployment is high while labour force participation has decreased, particularly for females."
An IMF mission is in Pakistan to review the cash-strapped country's quarterly performance under its USD 6 billion bailout package, which was finalised this year, according to a media report.
The successful completion of the first review would enable Islamabad to draw about $453 million from the Fund in first part of December, taking the total amount to almost $1.44 billion. The IMF had made in July this year an upfront disbursement of $991 million on completion of all prior actions committed by Pakistan before signing the fund programme, Dawn news reported on Monday.
“We see the Indian economy rebounding from our projected 6.1 per cent growth this fiscal year to something like 7 per cent in the next fiscal year (2020). We see the factors that will support growth, including monetary policy stimulus, working their way through the pipeline,” Jonathan Ostry, Deputy Director, Asia Pacific Department at the IMF, told reporters.
Addressing the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, Sitharaman said a task force has been constituted in the finance ministry that will draw up a national infrastructure pipeline for the next five years.
In an apparent reference to Pakistan, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the integration of the IMF's lending policies with key provisions like anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing can significantly enhance its member nation's compliance on these issues that pose threat to the global economy.
It, however, said India should address continued fiscal consolidation and secure long-term stability of the fiscal conditions.
Asked if the government is still on track to maintain the fiscal deficit target to 3.3 per cent of the GDP, Nirmala Sitharaman said: "Fiscal deficit, I am not reviewing it now."
The International Monetary Fund on Thursday said though India has worked on the fundamentals of its economy, there are problems, including the long-term drivers of growth, that need to be addressed.
The IMF has downgraded India's GDP growth projection to 6.1 per cent in 2019. The new projection is 1.2 per cent down from its April projections. According to IMF, India will grow at 7.3 per cent in 2019. However, three months later it projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019, a downward revision of 0.3 per cent.
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