Transcript

Press Briefing Transcript: Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G24), Spring Meetings 2025

April 24, 2025

SPEAKERS:

Chair: Pablo Quirno, Secretary of Finance, Ministry of Economy of Argentina

First Vice‑Chair:  Olawale Edun, Federal Minister of Finance of Nigeria

Second Vice‑Chair: Jameel Ahmad, Governor, State Bank of Pakistan

Director: Iyabo Masha, G‑24 Secretariat

MODERATOR:

Pavis Devahasadin, Communications Officer, IMF

Mr. Devahasadin: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Pavis Devahasadin, Communication Officer from the IMF's Communication Department. I would like to welcome everyone here in this room and our online audience to the press conference on the Intergovernmental Group of 24 on International Monetary Affairs and Development or G‑24.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we have simultaneous translation in English, French and Spanish. It is my honor to introduce the distinguished panel at this table, the Chair of the Ministry of the G‑24 at the center is Mr. Pablo Quirno, Secretary of Finance of Argentina. To his right is Mr. Vice Chair, Mr. Olawale Edun, Nigeria's Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy. To the left of Mr. Chair is Second‑Vice Chair Mr. Jameel Ahmad, Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. Of course, at the other end of the table is Director of G‑24 Secretariat Ms. Iyabo Masha. Without further ado, may I invite Mr. Quirno to give some remarks. Mr. Chair, the floor is yours.

Mr. Quirno (Argentina): Thank you, Pavis. Dear members of the press, I would like to extend a warm welcome to each and every one of you as we gather for this press conference. You have at your disposal our comprehensive communiqué and press release encapsulating the discussions held today. Allow me to briefly highlight the key takeaways.

We are witnessing a major transition in how the global economy works and processes of change such as these always involve intervals of great volatility and uncertainty. Our communiqué reflects that the recent economic developments have driven uncertainty to elevated levels. In this context, emerging market and developing economies face additional challenges stemming from both external conditions and domestic factors.

On the external front, many EMDEs continue to face elevated public debt levels and rising debt servicing burdens. The prevailing environment of still tight global financial conditions is exacerbating these challenges, constraining fiscal space, and forcing difficult tradeoffs between repaying creditors and investing in critical areas for productivity, growth and development. These also represent a risk to macroeconomic stability, as debt maturities and rising debt service payments hinder fiscal consolidation plans, which are necessary to tackle domestic imbalances, maintain price stability, and foster a stable macroeconomic environment for investment and growth.

On the domestic front, weak fiscal fundamentals are at the core of macroeconomic instability, while many of us face longstanding structural policy challenges that hold back productivity and competitiveness.

The building up of external and fiscal imbalances amid public spending pressures that exceed revenues and with constrained access to international financial markets further erodes macroeconomic stability.

Furthermore, domestic environments perceived as unsafe for investment dominated by overly complex legislation and inefficient and burdensome tax systems add to macroeconomic instability to further discourage much‑needed private capital inflows.

As stated in the communiqué, domestic policymaking is the first line of defense. The best way to enhance short‑term domestic responsiveness, as well as medium‑term growth capacity is through solid macroeconomic frameworks combined with clear rules that foster a predictable environment for private investment.

Pivoting to our fiscal consolidation to set debt on a sustainable path and rebuild buffers while advancing with productivity‑enhancing‑market reoriented structural reforms must remain priorities for the domestic policymaking. Whereas doing so while maintaining social cohesion and protecting the most vulnerable can be challenging, it can be achieved with careful policy calibration.

But as these measures may take some time to deliver, mobilizing sufficient international support is also crucial to help countries meet their financing needs while they navigate the waters towards a healthier economy. The Bretton Woods Institutions remain crucial, necessitating decisive actions to fortify the Global Financial Safety Net and broaden development finance. The IMF's role as a centerpiece of the Global Financial Safety Net is vital in addressing multilateral challenges and supporting vulnerable countries. We appreciate the IMF's recent reforms to better support EMDEs, such as the recent review of the charges and surcharges policies.

However, countries with limited access to affordable short‑term and crisis‑related liquidity continue to face vulnerabilities. It is essential to address liquidity pressures and strengthen crisis prevention and response capabilities, including enhancing existing financial safety nets. Surveillance and internal and external stability should be intensified, including on spillover effects from systematically important countries. The World Bank has made progress in implementing the Evolution Program, but further progress is required in operationalizing key aspects of the framework of financial incentives and reducing IBRD loan pricing. Faster implementation of the remaining G‑20 Independent Experts Groups Recommendations on MDB reforms is needed, including mitigating currency risks through local currency lending and domestic capital market reforms, de‑risking private‑sector investment, and increasing capital within the WBG and across the MDB system.

Swift progress on the 2025 shareholding review is necessary to address misalignments, strengthen voice and representation, enhance IBRD legitimacy, and ensure equitable voting power.

In sum, the path to sharp growth and a steady growing economy is multifaceted. We must do our part and commit to strengthen fiscal and monetary frameworks, build robust institutions, and embrace structural reforms that promote competitiveness, productivity gains, and job creation, but at the same time we need global financial institutions that recognize domestic efforts and are willing and well‑prepared to step up for these countries. Thank you, and with these remarks, I am now ready to entertain your questions.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before we begin the Q&A section, I kindly ask that all questions remain within the scope of the G‑24's mandate and responsibilities. Other questions outside of its purview, of course, should be raised during the regional press conferences that are going to be taking place in the coming days. And please kindly identify yourself, your organization, your news outlet, and specify to whom your questions would like to be addressing. With that, any questions? Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Good morning to everybody. Mr. Quirno, you just said that the Bretton Woods Institutions are crucial. Does any of you feel that their role, their functioning is endangered currently? Thank you for answering this question.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you.

Mr. Quirno: I think globally we are facing a period of volatility and uncertainty. As such, the Bretton Woods Institutions are crucial in providing the safety net and the channels of communication that remain open among the different countries that participate in those institutions. And I think the role is very, very important. And we do not see them—I mean, we are always rebalancing their role and their task, and it is something that is a process that we do constantly. At the end of the day, the role is vital. It is very important, and we do not see them at risk as you put it.

Mr. Devahasadin: Minister Edun.

Mr. Edun (Nigeria): Thank you. I agree with the Chair that there is nothing that we have heard that says that the Bretton Woods Institutions stands ready to do anything other than on the one hand, provide safety net. On the other hand, continue to provide development finance. If anything, this time of heightened global uncertainty, what we have heard from them is that they stand ready and are very much willing and capable to help countries to navigate this particular time and to continue to encourage good policymaking, to encourage resilience, building of resilience, building of buffers and effectively staying the course for those who are actually on a path that will take them further along the road to growth development and reduction of poverty.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you. Governor Ahmad or Ms. Masha, would you like to add anything?

Mr. Ahmad: No, it is OK. I think we fully agree with the views expressed by the Chair and the Vice. I think the increased uncertainty and the prevailing situation, it has become much more important for the Bretton Woods Institutions to continue to play their role and particularly as the financial safety net providers and also as the development partners. I think they have a role which will continue to be there, and they will be contributing in the performance of the road previously—that they have been doing previously, so I fully agree.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you. Ms. Masha?

Ms. Masha (G-24 Secretariat): Yes. We believe that the organizations are very useful, and the usefulness is very much appreciated, and so we do not have any uncertainty about their continued relevance. And we do hope that whatever actions countries are taking, the advanced economies are taking, they will factor into their decision the very good usefulness of these organizations. Thank you.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you. Going back to the floor. Any question? Right here, lady with the glasses.

QUESTION: My question is for Mr. Jameel Ahmad. What steps is the State Bank of Pakistan taking? Is it engaging with other central banks to mitigate risks, particularly in the G‑24 framework? Thank you.

Mr. Ahmad: I think as initially said that if there is any specific questions pertaining to the State Bank, we can discuss that during the separate conferences, which we have, but for the time being, since we are in the G-24 platform, we are coordinating with other central banks, and we discussed all these issues during the yesterday's Deputies Meeting as well as today's meeting also of the G-24. These are the issues faced by the G-24 members and have been thoroughly discussed and the stance has been agreed upon. This is what is contained in the communiqué which is being issued today.

Mr. Devahasadin: Going back to the floor, maybe in the midsection I saw some hands. I will start with you in the black. Thank you. We are going to make our way back. Yes.

QUESTION: So, I have a couple questions for everyone here. First of all, how concerned are your members from the fallout from tariffs and what are they trying to do to try to mitigate the impacts? Also, are you planning to work more closely with each other, for instance, increasing trade with each other? And lastly, specifically, are you planning on working more closely with China, for instance?

Mr. Devahasadin: Just to add to that, I got an advanced question Sri Lanka. In the light of reciprocal tariff currently in place, what strategy is the G‑24 considering as a working group to alleviate the pressure on emerging economies? So that is related to your question as well. Mr. Chair.

Mr. Quirno: Thank you. Thank you for the questions. I think that it is important to understand that the G‑24 is a very diverse group of countries, and everyone, each of us has its own peculiarities, strengths, and weaknesses in the midst of the current trade situation. So, what I would say is that the fallout of this uncertainty that we are facing creates more volatility. And as emerging market countries and developing countries, what you face is a situation in which, in addition to the trade tensions, you have a situation on the capital markets and the capital flows, things that are based on the uncertainty. What happens is flows are expecting a solution. As one of the members said today, we can deal with good news. We can deal with bad news. We need to know what to do under uncertainty. You know, as we are going through this process of trade negotiations globally and as definitions are set, then we will know how to react. In the meantime, as we said in the communiqué and as we said in my opening remarks, the first line of defense, the thing that is within our country's contro, is around the domestic agenda. We need to bring resilience into our own economies in such a way that we have a fiscal path that is credible, that we have sound monetary policies as well that back that fiscal consolidation program, because at the end of the day that is what investors are looking at.

Investors are looking at the different countries' situation and see how they can cope with this level of uncertainties. We have faced different levels, different crises in the past — globally, the pandemic being the last one. And we have, as a collective number of countries, been able to achieve a level of resilience that is very good. I mean, that resilience is being tested once again. That is why we also need to work in conjunction among the different countries, not only G‑24 but in a global context to address the situation. But I think the homework also needs to be consolidated at home in order to then continue moving forward. And as such, we are also obviously fostering our trade relationships among the different countries. We are doing it among the G‑24, among G‑20, so there are various areas of cooperation and consolidation there as well.

Mr. Devahasadin: Any perspective from Ms. Masha in terms of coordination, collaboration across nations?

Ms. Masha: Well, I think the Chair has pointed out some of those issues regarding macroeconomic stability, that is when these shocks manifest, there’s need for fiscal policies, sound monetary policies. But more along that line, it also provides opportunities for countries to pivot towards a different development pathway. Maybe going into sectors that are going to satisfy domestic demand will make them less prone to external shocks and diversifying their markets, the different markets, so they can better cope with the future tariff or trade policies. Thank you.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you. Going back to the floor, I see hands right there all the way in the back, the lady in beige. We will come back to the front.

QUESTION: Thank you for taking our questions. A question for everyone, sort of piggybacking off of my colleague's question on tariffs. How does the G‑24 weigh the inflationary risks versus risks of recession from the current tariff environment? And then one for the Argentina Secretary, you spoke about debt maturities and rising debt payments, more than 4 billion in debt many coming due for Argentina in July right after an ambitious reserve target accumulation from the IMF. How does Argentina plan to confront those payments and is there a target that it is looking back to return to capital markets? Thank you.

Mr. Quirno: In terms of the first question related to inflationary pressures and related to the trade situation, we had this morning the World Economic Outlook conference in which we had details on that perspective, but I think also it is very early to tell on how this is going to at the end of the day be moving forward. We are not in the business—at least I am not in the business of projecting inflation in my own country. It is very difficult to try to project inflationary pressures on a global basis, but I think it is—as I said before, we are living in uncertain times. We expect that trade negotiations that are currently underway reach a good point that is satisfactory to everyone involved, and that will normalize trade flows from that perspective onwards. In terms of Argentina—I mean, despite the fact that it is a common theme throughout the G‑24—what we are trying to do in Argentina for the last 15 months is basically gain our credibility back. And as such, we have elected a very conservative and unorthodox approach to the problems that Argentina had. And one of the problems that Argentina had was on the fiscal front. And we have done a tremendous fiscal consolidation. We put our house in order, on the monetary front as well. And that track record is one that will put us in a path to regaining market access eventually.

Having said that, from my perspective, as the CFO of the country, what I can say is that we work at it very conservatively. I am not assuming that Argentina will be able to re‑access markets at a given time. But we have certainty that the maturities are coming due. That is why we have worked in the past in showing our willingness to pay. We have honored all our commitments. We have now a new IMF program, which has started to work very well, as expected. And in addition to that, because of that conservative, look, we have already accumulated reserves. The Treasury has bought a significant amount of dollars that it has at the central bank to honor those obligations. So, we do not expect to—we cannot speculate about when Argentina will be able to re‑access international markets. When those will happen, when that situation happens, we will address it. But in the meantime, we still work as if we have no access, and we have to pay down our obligations as we did in this last 15 months.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you, I see three remaining hands. I will come back to the front with the lady in the brown jacket first and then I go to that side of the room. I see two hands. Please keep your questions short. We have limited time. Thank you.

QUESTION: Hi. My question is regarding—we have seen the U.S. called back on some of the financings that it gives to developing economies, so in terms of financing the sustainable development goals, as well as climate action, could you talk about some of the challenges there?

Mr. Devahasadin: Are your questions related to climate so we can collect them both? Anyone on climate here.

Mr. Quirno: We face several challenges and as such, for that, many countries rely on the World Bank and the IMF, to basically be able to develop tools to finance that development, finance climate action, to finance infrastructure, and as such, we are at a period in which you have to—countries have to balance that in turn with their own macroeconomic situation in that respect. We need to—we have many of our countries in the G‑24 have significant natural resources that need to be developed. Those are the ones that are part of the transition energy, for example. And those are situations in which you cannot access private financing. The role of development financing in terms of climate, in terms of energy transition, et cetera, is very important. But those are challenges that are on the table that we need to address, and we are addressing together as a group and as an individual country as well.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you. Go back to the floor. Gentleman back here and we can go all the way back to you, sir.

QUESTION: Thank you. Two questions. You brought back fiscal discipline to Argentina, but can you quantify the harmful effects on the lives of the citizens? That is what want to talk about, the strikes, the protests, the fact that people do not have money in their pockets. Secondly, you also talked about building resilience, how do we build resilience where most of the countries in the G‑24 have one similar problem, a lot of visionless leadership, definitely, and a lot of poverty. Our arms are already tied behind our hands economically. How do you expect us to build resilience?  We are just led to the slaughter slap.

Mr. Devahasadin: Thank you. Can I go all the way back to the back, the gentleman in the back, please?

QUESTION: Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to touch on debt restructuring. In October you called on the reform of the Common Framework, and I am curious to know more about what sort of reform moves you have seen since then and also what types of reforms the G‑24 would like to see to the Common Framework. Thank you.

Mr. Quirno: To the first question, I hate to make reference to Argentina, but the question was directly addressed to that situation. Argentina was facing a very dire situation—55 percent poverty rate before this administration took office. We have worked very, very strongly to do a couple of things that basically went straight to address that situation by having done our fiscal consolidation. We basically reduced 5 percentage points of GDP deficit in a month, something that has not been done probably anywhere else in the world so far. But we did it because we knew that we had no alternative. And at the end of the day, what happened is that the myth is that by doing such an adjustment, you would enter into a deep recession. Argentina rebounded out of its recession that was two and a half years long two months after that fiscal consolidation.

Since then, real wages have increased for 10 months straight. Poverty levels have been reduced from 54 percent to 38 percent in about a year. And economic activity has increased 6 percent December 2024 from December 2023 when we took over. It can be done. That is the message. You know, there is preoccupations before, during such a big adjustment as we did, but it pays out. It takes the political will to do it. Everyone knows what needs to be done on the fiscal and monetary fronts. The books have been written about it. What happens is you need the political willingness to attack the problem because that may hurt politicians when they make those decisions. We have a very strong leadership in President Milei -- the one that has said we need to go in this. What he has said is we need to take care of the most vulnerable. We doubled in real terms, while being able to achieve our financial surplus. We were able to double in real terms the assistance to the most vulnerable. And that is something that basically shows the amount of corruption and intermediation that was on the social plans that the national government was spending on. So now those funds have been redirected. It is funny that we doubled the expenditures in real terms, but the amount that people received more than tripled. We spent 100, and we are now spending 200 in real terms. People got 60. They received 60, and then they are receiving 200. That is a big—very big realization from the most vulnerable population that they have been robbed for years. Because by maintaining fiscal consolidation, by maintaining a financial surplus, we were still able to double the assistance to the most vulnerable.

Mr. Devahasadin: We go to Ms. Masha on debt restructuring because you spoke about it last time.

Ms. Masha: Debt restructuring?

Mr. Devahasadin: The Common Framework. Yes, the progress on that.

Ms. Masha: I want to add a little to what the Chair said in response to the question before I go to the Common Framework.

Mr. Devahasadin: Yes.

Ms. Masha: That is just to say that the G‑24 member countries, we have some of the largest economies in the world as members of G‑24, and the good thing is that the growth, the size of their economy, most of them over the past two or three decades, China, India and Brazil. So that takes a lot of vision. That takes a lot of implementations of the right policies. So, it is not quite a visionless leadership, but they have had to take policies that enable the countries to achieve what they have been able to achieve over such a short period of time.

On the Common Framework -- where we are on the Common Framework is that some countries have used it. Some have found it beneficial. The only complaint—well, some of the complaints we have heard about is that the process takes a very long time. And during that long time, they are not able to access the market, or they have to take some difficult decisions when they do not know how it is going to play out. And we also made that position known. The second, the other issue is we need more participation of the private market, maybe of also multilateral development banks, and also to have some precise idea of how it will play out. Some middle‑income countries have been asked to be a part of it. That is not really in discussion now, but all in all, countries have benefited from it, but there could be more benefit. Thank you.

Mr. Devahasadin: Mr. Chair, you would like to add anything?

Mr. Quirno (Argentina): No.

Mr. Devahasadin: We are out of time. Unfortunately, Minister Edun had another obligation. If you have any follow‑up question, send it to press@G24.org. That was in the advisory, how to contact the G‑24. The communiqué should have been posted on IMF.org and the transcript of this press conference will be made available later. Thank you very much for joining this press conference and have a good rest of your day. Thank you.