Speakers:
Thomas Helbling, Deputy Director, Asia and Pacific Department
Li Cui,Assistant Director, Asia and Pacific Department
Moderator:
Ting Yan, Senior Press Officer, Communications Department
YAN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this IMF press conference on the Asia and Pacific Region’s Economic Outlook.My name is Ting Yan, from the Communications Department at the IMF. I'm glad to be joined today by our two speakers. We have Thomas Helbling, Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department, and also Li Cui, Assistant Director of the Asia and Pacific Department. As we launch the Regional Economic Outlook Report today, Thomas will start by giving some opening remarks to summarize the key findings of the report, and then we will open the floor to answer your questions. Without further ado, Thomas, the floor is yours.
HELBLING: Good morning to you all here in Hong Kong. I'm very proud that you will join us for the launch of our October 2025 Regional Economic Outlook here in Hong Kong. Allow me to make a few opening remarks.
Let me start with the first slide. The Regional Economic Outlook, as also emphasized last week during our Annual Meetings, is that economic activity in the world, in particular also in the Asia-Pacific, has held up better than expected. Despite though the region having lowered the ground on U.S. tariffs and continued higher trade policy. So the high tariffs that you see in the chart. We project the region to grow by 4.5 percent in 2025, that's broadly unchanged from last year, and then moderate to 4.1. This is a better profile than we had in April, as also mentioned. Inflation is quite different across the region. We will not discuss inflation in details. The region is once again set to contribute the lion's share of global growth, about 60 percent of this year and the next.
Let me orient my opening remarks around five questions. The first is what explains this resilience? And I would identify three key factors: strong exports, technical and accommodative macroeconomic policies, reinforced by example, financial institutions. Let me elaborate on each of these factors.
Exports were supported by firms' ongoing shipments provided to them ahead of tariffs. And tariffs themselves while higher than they were at the beginning of the year, they are lower than they were or they were expected to be in April that they expected to be held. Export strength was also driven by a surge in intra-regional trade, which was partly led by the AI-driven tech pool. It was also led by a surge in intra-regional trade, which partly reflects strong growth momentum in Asia itself. Activity has also been supported -- and this brings me to my next slide -- it has also been supported by easing of monetary or fiscal policy, depending on the country. And across the region, financial conditions have eased, booming equity markets, longer -- lower long-term borrowing costs, and weaker dollar.
The next question is how have individual economies performed? The Chinese economy has remained resilient despite the increased tariffs, with robust growth in the first half of this year driven by fiscal intervention and strong exports. Growth is expected to moderate in the second half of the year, and uncertainty remains high. Overall export growth rose at 4.8 percent this year and then forecasted to moderate to 4.2 percent next year. Inflation is expected to pick up 2.7 percent next year, but deflation in price pressures overall across the entire spectrum persists. We have revised this year's growth forecast for Japan to 1.1 percent, owing also to strong uptick in domestic demand, growing income, et cetera. But activity is protected and moves low to 0.6 percent next year, close to the potential of the Japanese economy. Inflation is projected to moderate, converging to the BOJ's 2 percent target by 2027. But from above, the decline will be helped by declining commodity prices.
The Indian economy is to grow as projected to grow at a healthy pace of 6.6 percent. Once again, India is among the fastest growing major emerging market economies, and the welcomed GST reform this year will offset the adverse impact of higher tariffs. So you see broadly unchanged projected growth of 6.6 percent. And then next year, we see a slight slowing of growth to 6.2 percent, mainly owing to the impact of higher tariffs. And then helped by lower food prices and the GST reform, inflation is expected to moderate to 2 percent -- to 2.8 percent before moving back a bit towards the RBI's target of 4 percent next year.
Elsewhere in Asia, we see an uptick in growth. In Korea from 0.9 percent this year to 1.8 percent next year. That is partly because of accommodative macroeconomic policies and also easing domestic political concern. Countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, they will grow. We project them to grow at 4.3 percent this year and next year, still supported by export strength and some countries by policy support.
Is resilience the whole story? That's my next question. And here I will mark two points. The overall picture, and we have emphasized that for some time, while as Asia is still growing very fast, it is slower growth than it was before the pandemic. So average growth in Asia has also decreased relative to the pre-pandemic period. And there are a number of factors that are a concern from a growth perspective, aging populations, weaker productivity, economic scars from the pandemic, and rising youth unemployment, long-term dissatisfaction, and the lack of jobs and opportunities. These are weighing on sentiment, but also prospects.
And the second aspect of why it's not well about resilience is the downside to the current outlook. As most recent developments indicate, the dust of tariffs has not settled yet, and risks of renewed escalation of trade tensions and pressures for more geoeconomic fragmentation remain. Similarly, risk premiums and interest rates could rise again, especially if trade policy uncertainty or political tensions intensify.
And then, in the face of these risks, what should be the focus of policies? On the macro side, where inflation is or expected to decrease below target, countries can use monetary policy and lower interest rates. They could also use temporary, well-targeted fiscal measures to support demand on vulnerable people or what I call unviable firms and sectors affected by tariffs.
But we also mentioned upgrading medium-term fiscal frameworks will be essential in the region to be favorable of future shocks and manage longer-term spending pressures for aging populations. Countries should also make growth more inclusive and resilient by rebalancing towards domestic demand, especially consumption, through stronger social safety nets, and where needed, repairing and restructuring balance sheet. And as our Managing Director mentioned at the Annual Meeting, there's a much-needed push for streamlined regulations to enable the private sector rise to its potential and strengthen growth.
Then, finally, what is special about our Regional Economic Outlook? And here I would mention, you know, very timely, topical, analytical chapter. The first chapter is about regional trade integration. The chapter highlights that concerted efforts to pursue reforms to which trade and investment will help fuel, durable growth for many years to come. The analysis in the chapter shows -- you can find the chapter in the report under embargo -- the chapter shows that deeper regional integration could yield sizable gains for countries. Countries could cut non-tariff barriers, broaden and modernize trade agreements to cover services and digital trade, and ease for direct investment in infrastructure.
The second analytical chapter in this Regional Economic Outlook shows that countries in Asia need to boost capital efficiencies, making sure that every dollar, yuan, won, yen invested has strong returns with deeper bond and equity markets, broader market-based finance, and stronger insolvency and debt workout frameworks so that capital flows to the most productive firms.
To conclude, Asia’s story for 2025 is resilience. The task ahead is renewal policies that anchor stability today and keep them while unlocking stronger, more durable roles for the market.
Thank you, we look forward to your questions.
YAN: Thank you so much, Thomas.
We are ready for your questions. As a reminder, this press briefing is not under embargo. It's on the record, and we have already posted the report on imf.org. If you have any questions, please raise your hand, identify yourself with name and your media organization. Gentleman on the left, please.
QUESTIONER: Hi there, Thomas. Thank you very much for your time. I'm Arjun Alim from the Financial Times here in Hong Kong. Two questions for you. Firstly, on your point on regional integration, to what extent is there actually quite a large downside to integration for the rest of Asia, given that it exposes them more to Chinese deflation being exported to them? And secondly, what is the bigger risk for Asia's growth as a whole? Is it a slowdown in China's economy and Chinese deflation or is it U.S. trade barriers? Thank you.
HELBLING: On your first question, I will pass on Li here shortly. On the finance, let me highlight that I think trade offers opportunities and sizable benefits opening. So the opening trade also with China will benefit the countries. It allows for reconfiguration of production from taking new opportunities. The falling prices in China are, as we have highlighted, the phenomenon of weak domestic demand. So it's important there for China to take the right macroeconomic policies, boost domestic demand through more fiscal stimulus, and using monetary policy. But that all does not detract from the fact that regional integration can be sizable aid in particular in Asia, and there's specific aspects to the regional and trade integration. And here I'll pass on to Li.
CUI: Thanks. So on the question of, I think it was (inaudible) on the region, data, and (inaudible). So the regional trade has held up quite well. So, as Thomas mentioned in his opening remarks from loading and solving interregional trade has been supportive. So, going forward, we would say the global tariff uncertainty and policies are the big risk for the region. One, because the region is quite exposed to global demand, and two, also because the tariff regimes can also be quite complicated and affecting different countries because of the different tariffs, et cetera. So this uncertainty could affect the region's investment and broader growth.
So that's a clear downside risk. And what we emphasize is the benefit of regional integration by lowering trade barriers among each other. That helps to lower the costs and help the countries to also offset some of the increase from tariffs through this lower cost and more diversified markets. So a broader trade integration does yield economic benefits for the region. We also note that there could be distributional impact because different sectors could be affected differently. So that requires policymakers, including labor market policies and social safety net, et cetera, to counter the distributional impact. Thank you.
HELBLING: Thank you. And maybe quickly to your second question, we highlight downside risk. We have long highlighted downside risk from China to the region as the largest economy, especially with the property markets' long-term weak domestic demand. But we have also consistently, over the past few years, highlighted risk from (inaudible) precious oil, from geopolitical fragmentation, and escalating trade tensions. And we don't take a view on which risk is bigger. It's both, you know, the risk of the shock materializing, the size of the shocks, are a number of factors. So we do not speculate about which is more important. We just highlighted risks that are important and for which policymakers in the region should be prepared for.
QUESTIONER: A follow-up. Just so I've understood in terms of the first question, the implication is that greater regional integration in Asia would open most Asian economies up more to, for example, Chinese exports or imports, and that would have justifications where you're saying on balance there are more benefits. Is that correct?
HELBLING: It's not just opening up to China, it's opening up to each other, right? And that brings benefits, as Li mentioned, overall trade, what it -- it makes production more efficient, allows for production to be done by the most efficient producers, and consumers will benefit. More efficiency means lower prices. That's one important challenge to which these efficiency gains materialize. But again, deflationary pressures and low inflation are more of a macroeconomic rather than trade integration.
QUESTIONER: Thank you.
YAN: Thank you. Lady in the second row, please.
QUESTIONER: Thank you for your time today. This is Loretta Chen from Nikkei Asia. I have two questions. First, do you have any immediate reaction towards China's policy that was announced after yesterday's 4th plenum, especially in regards with some of the policies mentioning about boosting domestic demand. Do you think those are from what you have seen sufficient in, actually, you know, increasing domestic consumption? The second question is related to the scheduled meeting between Xi and Trump next week. What is your base case in terms of the new deal between China and the U.S.?
HELBLING: On your first question, we will not talk or communicate what to plan. You mentioned specific policies, but communique and more broadly defined, they plan -- they lay out high-level policy principles. There are a number of policy principles or visions or objectives, including, for example, reaching income status of modernly developed countries for 2035. And there's one high-level of objective there of domestic market reform, which also includes boosting consumption. But we, our China team, is studying the communique and will look forward to the actual plan, and we'll discuss policies, policies that will back up these visions in the next Article IV Consultation with Beijing. So it's early days too early here next day to discuss what this would mean to policies. I think we need to evaluate on that. That's on question number one.
On question number two, we don't have specific, we don't make projections of the outcome of that meeting. I think what we have highlighted consistently over the past few years and continue to highlight is the value of open multilateral trading systems in the global economy, which makes sure that all countries, in particular, also poor developing countries, have the opportunities for trade, growth, and development. And we have encouraged countries, as our Managing Director said, to use the current situation to create new opportunities, discuss some of the underlying tensions or issues, grievances behind the trade tensions, and find new solutions to enable, open -- continue to make open trade. We would surely hope that the outcome of meaning will also help these goals.
YAN: Any more questions?
QUESTIONER: Thanks for taking my question. Here's a question from Sina Finance. I have two questions. The first one is about tariff. We know that the tariff policy of United States are often unstable. However, the World Economic Report notes that the trade protectionist measure has had a limited impact on economic activities and prices, but it does have some negative impact in near term. So, could you explain the reason behind this and how global financial investors have adapted to the ongoing uncertainty in trade policies?
And the second one, I also have a minor confusion about the AI industry regarding a viewpoint in your latest World Economic Report, not this one. As the report mentioned, the portfolio income growth and productivity brought by the AI industry could be disappointing. And the report said this may mark the end of the AI investment goal associated with financial market, with potential broader implications for the micro financial stability. Yet and at the same time, your report also suggests that AI could bring economy-wide gains. So this seems somehow contradictory. So does AI truly have a positive impact on the overall economic environment? Thank you.
HELBLING: Thank you. So on your first question, I think the impact of the tariff so far has been mass, I would say by, several developments. First were that there were the ups and downs, there were tariff announcements, and the tariffs were paused. Then, different tariffs in the second round were announced. So one is that this announcement or delayed implementation of tariffs has led to incentives for front loading, that is, advanced purchases and investment to take benefits of -- take the benefit of lower or non-tariffs. That's the front-loading part I discussed. That has matched the overall negative effect of tariff, which we have documented in the World Economic Outlook, but also in the Regional Economic Outlook, that tariff has a negative effect. Negative effects depend very much on the rate of tariffs and the implementation. And that brings me to the second point.
So while we think that the negative effect of the tariff will be building in the region, and that was one reason for why we see lower growth next year, that's unclear. Part of the impact is also given by tariff exemption. So, within the higher tariffs, there are still exemptions. So if you look between the effective tariff rates which we have documented in the Regional Economic Outlook and the actual tariffs collected, there is no -- there is still quite a gap. So the tariff burden is a bit lower than expected, and that explains why, maybe so far, we have not seen that much. But in the longer term and I think the negative is not a negative effect. It’s a negative effect, sure, but it will, over time, materialize.
CUI: So on your second and third question, financial market, I think as Thomas mentioned, tariff impact so far we have seen some resilience because of a number of factors, but the negative impact is likely to come later, and that's almost, you know, it's going to take some time.
So in terms of financial market, what we see Is financial market take notes of this relatively solid performance so far, but also factoring in very large risks. That's why you see how the yield curve performs and how the commodity market, especially precious metals, perform. And I think that largely reflects this risk factor.
In terms of the AI, main thing is the time horizon in the near term because there has been a lot of equity price boom associated with the AI trade and investment. And part of this AI buildup was also likely to be front-loading. So a lot of this momentum could see some correction, especially if the equity market sees some disappointing earnings. However, in the medium term, especially in this region, there is a lot of potential for AI adoption in the healthcare, in the, you know, sector or to meet aging-related demand. So, for this region, we would say AI is creating two-sided risks. Near term, you could have some downside risks, but medium term, it's still a very strong driver and growth productivity factor to boost the productivity. So we could see two-sided risks.
QUESTIONER: Thank you.
YAN: Thank you. Lady in the front row, please. Thank you.
QUESTIONER: Thank you for taking my questions. I'm from China Daily. So my first question is, since the beginning of the year, we have seen some investor, they have been shifting their capital out of the U.S. market amidst broader uncertainties, and put other capital have been flowing into other markets, particularly the Asian markets. So this would be a very big opportunity for Hong Kong. And we also have seen Hong Kong's very robust activity in critical markets. So what would you suggest Hong Kong to do to sustain this new inflow of capital in the longer term?
And my second question is also about China's next five-year plans. It seems that the Chinese government is stepping up effort on opening up the -- further open up the market and boosting the domestic demand. So what kind of opportunities or challenges this would bring to other Asian economies, particularly in the context of regional economic integration? Thank you.
HELBLING: So, on your first question, yes, we have seen, in particular, also with dollar developments, we have seen incentives for portfolio rebalancing into Europe and Asia. These have led to some capital flows. But ultimately, you know what has benefited Hong Kong and which Hong Kong should and will continue to benefit for its growth in the economies and growth in the market. And Hong Kong, as an international financial center, so connects investors and borrowers or companies, matches opportunities. And I think for that's why has Hong Kong this role? It's strong regulations, it's a strong human capital basis, it's a strong infrastructure environment, both the digital infrastructure and logistical infrastructure. So as long as Hong Kong continues to maintain these factors that have underpinned its strength as a regional trading congress, as a financial center, it should continue to benefit from the opportunities in the region, and the region having major emerging markets has further potential to grow as income convergence continue. We think of China, of course, in this respect, we also think of India, we think of the ASEAN countries. So there's a lot of opportunity, and capital from all over the world will look to benefit from these opportunities. So I think that's what's upon the things Hong Kong's positions. Then, when you ask what does it mean for policies, it basically means to continue and adopt regulation to new markets, new technologies, and new instruments as they evolve. That's on question number one.
On question number two, if China opens up, and there's still within China there are still provincial barriers to trade within China to movements of goods and services across provinces. So if you have a truly national market that will benefit China, consumers, and firms in China. And then, with open opening up of borders and removing trade barriers, it would also benefit the region. I think that’s where corporate domestic market reform we understand that's an important part to remove some of these sometimes not very visible barriers to activity business and trade evaluation.
YAN: Any more questions from the room? Yeah, in the second row, please.
QUESTIONER: I have two questions. One is regional-related related and when is geo-domestic related? So my first question is transshipment tariff has been taking effect for several months in global tariff, and so far, have you spotted any major impact it brought to the Asia Pacific region, especially the trade flow related to China transshipment in ASEAN region? And my second question is, how do you think China’s effort to boost its -- how do you evaluate China’s effort to boost its consumption so far? So do you see what extra effort it needs to do to further sustain the growth in consumption and repair the market confidence? Thank you.
HELBLING: On your first question, I would say it's similar to the question before. There are a number of reasons why we haven't seen sort of the negative impact of the tariffs so far, partly related to front-loading, other factors that have supported strong exports, including the AI boom. But we would expect some of these negative effects to play out, and it's just important to keep in mind there have been several developments, several surprises or shocks, overall some negatives like the terrorist, others have been positive like the AI boom, and some of policy changes that countries have taken. So then what you see is the overall effect, not just the specific effect.
On question number two of China's domestic policies, we have argued that China has taken steps in the right direction. So this year, there is more fiscal stimulus, and some of that has explicitly geared towards supporting consumption. We have argued for some time that there are two elements. One is for the fiscal stimulus to be more oriented towards consumption, away from investment. And we see there in the short-term scope to increase transfer to rural areas, which are lower incomes, where some of the rural residents are more cash constraints, and to support reforms that will benefit rural residents, but also migrants to work for reforms. So that's one pillar.
And the second pillar is changes to the social safety net at large. That's sort of structural reforms, structural fiscal reform, so to speak, it will lower uncertainty faced by households to risk related to employment, health, and aging. So, to reduce uncertainty for households on a more durable, lasting fashion, I think there is hope to strengthen the social safety net both in terms of benefits, the scope of benefits, and the certainty. For example, some of the benefits are mandates that local governments have with low fiscal strains. There has been some uncertainty about the delivery actual services, which again, this uncertainty encourages what we call precautionary savings of households. So social safety net structured and fiscal reform will go a long way in removing lowering debt uncertainty and enabling households to actually to use their money and income as well.
YAN: Thank you. Before we take more questions from the room, we actually also received some questions online. Let me read some of the questions. One is on Japan from Shu Takaoka, Jiji Press. His question is new Prime Minister Takaichi would like to conduct responsible and active fiscal policies. IMF has advised Japan to implement fiscal service targeting measures if it would be necessary. How should Prime Minister Takaichi implement expansionary but responsible fiscal policies without shocks like Truss moment?
And another question of India from Anup Roy, Bloomberg News in Mumbai. His question is the IMF reclassified India's foreign exchange regime to a stabilized arrangement from a floating system in 2023. Is the IMF still sticking to its view of the rupee being a stabilized arrangement under current Governor Sanjay Malhotra, who has allowed more flexibility in rupee? How do you think the authorities should act to contain rupee volatility given the trade uncertainties?
We have more, but I’ll let you take these for now.
CUI: Let me take a question on Japan. So in terms of the fiscal policy, one key issue is that because of the high debt and rising interest payment and also future applications on aging-related spending, the fiscal space is actually quite limited. So we still maintain our view in terms of the importance of fiscal prudence in Japan. And we believe that the fiscal support to be -- to be delivered need to be targeted to address vulnerable households and firms' needs and also to be temporary, and the broad subsidies and tax cuts should be avoided. So you know, in general, we maintain a view that consolidation of fiscal policy is still needed. In the last few years, we have seen a reduction of fiscal deficit, and that's welcome, but more needs to be done. So future fiscal path should remain on a consolidating path.
HELBLING: On the question on India, we have indeed seen since Governor Malhotra is in office, we have seen more two-way flexibility in the exchange rate. We have also seen less intervention. As to the assessment of the de facto exchange rate regime, this is not a continuous assessment. It's done in regular time windows. So the next Article IV, which will be completed next month, de facto exchange rate regime will be reassessed. It's too early to speculate what that assessment will be, given the developments I just mentioned.
As for rupee volatility, we would argue that India is well placed to absorb increased volatility with more two-way exchange flexibility. On the one hand, there are not many balance sheet mismatches. The pass-through from exchange rate movements into inflation is very small, and India's FX markets are quite deep. So all the three main factors which would argue constitute the case for EXI are not that prominent in India, and so it would benefit from more exchange rate flexibility. In particular, we also highlight that in the Regional Economic Outlook, exchange rates are an important shock absorber, especially with real shocks such as tariff or other trade shocks, they can play a stabilizing role. They can be a buffer and help to mitigate the impact. For this reason, we also would recommend that India continued with a policy more efficient.
YAN: Okay. Lady in the second row.
QUESTIONER: Thanks, Thomas. This is from Reuters. I have a quick follow-up on the exchange rate topic for China. So we know that renminbi has been relatively stable against the dollar, but that also means it has weakened a lot against the basket of the ASEAN currencies, right? How's the implication? What's the implication of the regions, their economic sector, and the values? And was your suggestion for Beijing to adopt other exchange rate policy, and also because they want to internationalize the currency, what's the impact of China's own economy and the world?
HELBLING: So on exchange rate, so yes, the people think of China's broadly stabilized normal exchange rate against the dollar, I say broadly, so as the dollar has weakened a bit. But in terms of impact of Asia, many other countries in Asia also see the U.S. dollar has an increase. So if you look across Asia for emerging markets, there hasn't been much depreciation against dollar in these few cases, such as Vietnam. So you cannot say that, as emerging market currencies have generally depreciated against renminbi. And if, as economists ultimately, we will get real economic exchange rates, and there too (inaudible) and depreciate more recently in the (inaudible). That’s my point.
On exchange rate policy, we have long exchange rate flexibility. In China, we have argued that there's really important benefits. It would also allow -- it would allow the exchange to be a shock observer for the Chinese economy, and it would also strengthen monetary policy transmission. We continue to stand by this recommendation.
YAN: Thank you. Let me take a couple more questions. One is on Sri Lanka. We have Paneetha Ameresekere from Ceylon Today. His question is, has the IMF cut Sri Lanka's growth prospects from 3.5 to 3.1 for 2026 because of envisioned low capital spend in order to keep a low interest rate regime? Is the IMF happy that authorities kept electricity tariffs at bay when it came up for review recently?
Another question from Vajira Yasarathna, Hiru TV. His question is with restructuring that process nearly completed, opposition parties say repayment from 2028 will be challenging with the current revenue forecast for the government. What is the IMF's stance on this matter? Is the IMF satisfied with the current tax policy with Sri Lanka? Should it be widened more with the current rate or deemed with the amended rate?
Another question on Bangladesh from Rejaul Karim Byron, the Daily Star. We have learned that the IMF wants to delay the Fifth Review of Bangladesh's ongoing loan program. They intended to complete the review after discussions with the newly elected government following the national election in February next year. Could you explain the reason behind this? Bangladesh Bank is currently purchasing U.S. dollars from the foreign exchange market. How do you assess this move? What is your observation regarding the current exchange rate management? Thank you.
HELBLING: On Sri Lanka and the outlook, so we have indeed revised growth to 3.1 percent next year, but the reasons are different. I think the context you see is that Sri Lanka had a deep recession in 2022-2023 during the balance of payment crisis. So then, with the government embarked on a reform program that was supported by the IMF, there was a strong rebound in growth. So, last growth I believe was 5 percent, and this year in the first half, growth was 4.8 percent. Now some of that strong rebound was just normalization and economic activity in level term, some of the growth effect is a bit more temporary. That's what we see. Sri Lanka is going to its trend growth of 3.1 percent, and with the stronger rebound than we actually expected in 2024 and 2025, we see sort of that return to trend happening a bit sooner.
On the program and electricity pricing, let me just mention that the Staff came to do the Fifth Review on the program was in the field. They reached a Staff-Level agreement, I believe it was October 9th or October 10th. They will now -- that's only a Staff-Level agreement. But I think this signals that the IMF has been satisfied. Also, with the electricity pricing, as you know, electricity pricing is a continuous structural benchmark, reducing risks to the budget and the taxpayers from state-owned enterprises, including the utilities. I think the principle of cost recovery is a core principle enshrined in program the reforms, and the government has continued to meet the performance criteria. So the assessment back in early October was positive. As for the assessment in the next review, it's too early to speculate.
And then finally, on projections for revenue in 2028, I think on the program projections, the focus is on current year and next year. So reforms are progressing. We have emphasized that it is important for Sri Lanka to stay the course and complete its own homegrown reform program to bring the economy back on track and fully stabilize the economy. And then we would also expect that any concerns about 2028 will be put in perspective.
On Bangladesh, here I should say the mission for also the Fifth Review on the program is on the way to Bangladesh. They will conduct discussions with the authorities, and it remains to be seen what the outcome is. The mission will be in the field. They are having discussions to conduct the review, the Fifth Review of the program. Also, on the Bangladesh on reserves strengthening increasing reserves to reduce balance and payments vulnerabilities is a key goal of the program. So the success of the Central Bank in accumulating reserves is welcome. And the review mission will then assess whether the modalities were consistent with the new exchange rate regime that the floor (phonetic) is having.
YAN: Thank you. Do we have more questions from the room? If not, I think we can wrap up this press conference. Thank you so much for coming today, and I hope you have a very nice rest of your day. Our recording and transcript of this press conference will be posted on imf.org later today. Thank you so much.
