IMFC Press Conference Transcript

IMF News, October 14, 2022

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Date: October 14, 2022.
Chair: Nadia Calviño, Chair of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC).
Managing Director: Kristalina Georgieva, IMF.
Outcome: Teams agreed a full document on core issues; unanimity on a communiqué was blocked by Russia, requiring issuance of a Chair’s Statement that “includes the text which was agreed by all countries participating.”
Central political-economic message: “The war is the single most important element slowing down growth and generating inflation, volatility, energy and food insecurity, and uncertainty.” Repeated call: “Stop the war.”

Major challenges identified:
- Pandemic aftereffects compounded by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
- Shocks in international markets for energy, food, and other raw materials slowing global growth and increasing inflation.
- Threats to food security and financial stability.
Policy mix guidance:
- “Carefully calibrated policy mix” with stronger coordination across countries to limit spillover effects, “notably, in most vulnerable countries.”
- Call for fiscal responsibility, as well as social fairness: “There is a call for fiscal responsibility, as well as social fairness.”
- People-centered approach: “People matter. We need to deal with what is urgent, without losing sight of what is important.”
Endorsement of multilateralism and unity: “Unity and solidarity is now more important than ever.”

IMF resources available: “We have just slightly over $700 billion available to deploy.”
Use of IMF instruments:
- Use all instruments and all its ability, especially precautionary facilities.
- Food shock window: identified as “a very timely response that can provide swift emergency financing to countries that face balance of payments needs because of the high food prices.”
- Resilience and Sustainability Trust: plays “a very important role” and has been “greatly supported and appreciated by all the members.”
- On‑lending of SDRs: seen as a way to expand liquidity provision capacity and reserve provision capacity; described as “a line of defense” and “a line of offense” for climate and pandemic risks.
Early contributors to SDR on‑lending support (as named): Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, and Spain. Note: “Spain actually should come first because they were the first to provide financing.”
Debt treatment and Common Framework:
- Recognition that “there is more that we need to do, especially in the area of debt.”
- Urging the IMF to “very forcefully step forward with possible solutions to bring more impactfulness in the Common Framework.”
- Calls for clear guidelines, predictability, and “fair treatment of all creditors, public and private.”

Food security: high food prices create balance of payments needs for countries; food shock window intended to address these needs.
Fertilizer risk: “a number of people referring to the high fertilizer prices as potentially a risk for next year, not only the risk that we face today but a risk that may be amplified next year.”

Concerns about trade and geopolitical fragmentation:
- Risk that fragmentation could “impede trade and capital flows and also weigh on the outlook and hinder climate cooperation.”
- Delegations urged to avoid fragmentation, emphasizing impacts on the most vulnerable: “The poorest of the poor” highlighted repeatedly.
Supply‑chain adjustments:
- Anticipated rational diversification of supplies driven by awareness of supply interruptions from climate disasters or pandemics; cost alone will no longer be the sole determinant.
Simulation cited on fragmentation impact:
- “For advanced economies, it would be a loss of 2 percent of output. For emerging markets and developing economies, it can be 10 to 15 percent.”
- Caveat in source: “Now, this is not done scientifically. This is just one simulation.”
Historical context cited: integration led to “a tripling of the world economy in which emerging markets, developing economies quadrupled, and advanced economies doubled.”

Drivers of political discontent:
- Rising inequality and uneven geographic distribution of economic gains cited as roots of discontent and a driver of support for populist or far‑right movements.
Policy implication: place people at the center of policies — “Policies are for people. They are not for the books. And are policies inclusive? Are they fair?”

IMF–Egypt update:
- IMF to meet the Egyptian delegation “tomorrow.”
- “We have resolved the big policy issues. We are now working on much smaller technical details.”
- Remaining issue centers on exchange rate policy design and institutional change: “it boils down to exchange rate policy in Egypt. … there has been also a change institutionally in Egypt, a change of the Governor of the Central Bank.”
- Expected timing: “It is really at the finish line, to be crossed virtually within days.”

Press contact listed in the transcript header: PRESS OFFICER: Jose De Haro; Phone: +1 202 623-7100; Email: MEDIA@IMF.org.
Note: Meetings were in person for the first time in three years; Chair noted this was her first in‑person press conference there.

Source: IMFC Press Conference Transcript, October 14, 2022, IMF Communications Department.