{
  "title": "Transcript of a Press Briefing with the IMF Managing Director",
  "publication": "IMF News, April 16, 2015",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/28/04/54/tr041615",
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  "summary": "Event: Spring Meetings 2015 press briefing; Washington, D.C.; April 16, 2015.",
  "publishDate": "2015-04-16",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Opening remarks and global outlook",
      "content": "- Event: Spring Meetings 2015 press briefing; Washington, D.C.; April 16, 2015.\n- Managing Director: Christine Lagarde; First Deputy Managing Director: David Lipton; Moderator: Gerry Rice.\n- Global growth forecasts (WEO cited by Managing Director):\n  - \"we expect growth to be 3.5 in 2015 and 3.8 in 2016\"\n- Assessment:\n  - \"global recovery continues.\"\n  - Growth is \"moderate and uneven.\"\n  - Growth \"is just simply not good enough\" to reduce high unemployment, boost middle-class incomes, or drive poverty reduction.\n- Upcoming engagement: Spring Meetings discussions with Finance Ministers and Governors of Central Banks; IMF presence in October in Lima, Peru."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Lifting today’s growth — demand-support policy package",
      "content": "- Policy recommendation is a tailored package of demand-support measures that includes:\n  - accommodative monetary policy where needed;\n  - tightening of monetary policy where possible;\n  - \"smart fiscal policies adjusted to country specificities.\"\n- Financial stability considerations to be addressed in tandem:\n  - risks from \"super low interest rates, volatile commodity prices and exchange rates, and from the potential rise in the U.S. short-term interest rates that is expected in the near future.\"\n  - risks are \"rising and have been rotating\" — examples of rotation:\n    - \"from advanced economies to emerging markets;\"\n    - \"from banks to the nonbank financial sector;\"\n    - \"from sovereign solvency to market liquidity.\"\n- Call for \"stronger financial policies\" to tackle these evolving risks."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Getting good — raising medium-term growth potential (structural reforms)",
      "content": "- Observed trend: \"Potential growth rates are going down; we have revised downwards.\"\n- Contributing factors cited:\n  - \"changing demographics,\"\n  - \"lower productivity factors,\"\n  - \"in some countries, the legacy of the crisis.\"\n- Required responses:\n  - \"serious, in-depth structural reforms pretty much across the board\" that are \"granular, adjusted to the diversity of the country’s specifics.\"\n  - Examples of reforms: \"labor market reform, infrastructure, trade, and investment in people.\"\n  - \"Implementing these reforms will call for strong leadership.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "International collaboration and IMF institutional reforms",
      "content": "- Assertion: \"to get good, it needs to get better, and to get better, it can only be done together.\"\n- Priorities for international cooperation:\n  - lift today’s growth and tomorrow’s growth;\n  - make growth \"more sustainable and more inclusive.\"\n- IMF-specific items highlighted:\n  - \"continue reforming the International Monetary System to make it more resilient, including efforts to better integrate fast growing emerging markets.\"\n  - explicit reference to \"quota and governance reform\" and \"the reform and the review of our SDR basket later this year.\"\n- 2015 framed as \"a special year for development\" (financing for development, sustainable development goals, climate change); IMF will engage with membership on these long-term goals."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Country and regional discussions — key points",
      "content": "- United States:\n  - Cited as a bright spot: \"the U.S. economy, for instance, is recovering quite strongly.\"\n  - WEO notes that \"macroeconomic risks have declined.\"\n- Europe and Japan:\n  - \"the U.K. is clearly holding very strongly. the euro area is also showing signs of recovery.\"\n  - Japan \"coming out of a slight recession, is also forecast to be on the rise.\"\n  - For Japan, monetary accommodation should be complemented by fiscal measures (consumption tax anchoring) and structural reforms (labor participation, deregulation, TPP).\n- Emerging markets and specific countries:\n  - Brazil: \"flat and forecast to be slightly negative this year\" in the global picture; later noted as suffering the most in recent months with \"negative growth this year but turning positive next year and onwards\" conditional on credible medium-term fiscal anchoring.\n  - China: \"slowing down, and foreseeably so\"; technical work is underway on inclusion of the renminbi in the SDR basket; two SDR criteria emphasized — \"freely usable\" and export capacity.\n  - Russia: \"not doing well at all and is in negative territory\" given oil and sanctions; President Putin cited as saying \"the worst for Russia seems to be over\" but IMF stresses continued importance of policy.\n- Middle East:\n  - High geopolitical risks; combined effect of low oil prices and geopolitical uncertainty can give \"a very concerning forecast.\"\n  - Distinction between oil exporters with or without buffers and oil importers (some of which in programs, e.g., Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco) that are \"not doing badly.\"\n- Africa (oil-exporting countries):\n  - Mixed effects from dollar appreciation: some benefit from dollar pricing of oil; others face stress because sovereigns and corporates borrowed in dollar-denominated loans.\n  - Policy suggestions: \"keep a tight ship,\" phase out fiscally paid subsidies \"to the maximum possible extent,\" and accelerate economic diversification."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Greece and IMF operational stance",
      "content": "- Payment delays:\n  - Historical note: \"payment delays have not been granted by the [Executive] Board of the IMF in the last 30 years.\"\n  - Payment delays treated as \"additional financing\" and not viewed as recommendable in the current situation.\n  - Managing Director: IMF is rule-based; \"all options are available to all countries\" but payment delays are not a preferred course of action.\n- Advice to Greece:\n  - Focus on concrete measures and reforms addressing short-term liquidity and medium-term stability; \"the tedious work of Financial Ministers\" and lenders to \"implement reforms ... to create jobs.\"\n- IMF lending safety and institutional financing:\n  - Managing Director commitment: \"management will do everything it can to make sure that lending to the Fund is actually the safest lending route.\"\n  - IMF financing capacity noted as strong across \"quota, New Arrangements to Borrow, or on its bilateral loans\" though Quota and Governance Reform of 2010 remains incomplete pending ratification."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Financial stability risks, exchange rates, and coordination",
      "content": "- Concerns highlighted:\n  - Large exchange rate movements could \"reignite a currency war talk\" if they continue.\n  - Managing Director emphasizes IMF role in fostering cooperation and coordination among major economies and authorities.\n- Recommended approach: reinforce international monetary system, expand safety nets, continue surveillance (FSAPs and bilateral/multilateral work) and engage authorities on spillovers and \"spillbacks.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "Special initiatives and institutions",
      "content": "- SDR review:\n  - Five-year review due \"before the end of 2015\"; technical assessment of renminbi candidacy underway with Chinese authorities.\n- AIIB:\n  - Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank described as \"a most welcome institution\" focused on infrastructure and regional projects; IMF intends to cooperate.\n\nTranscript of a Press Briefing with the IMF Managing Director — April 16, 2015. International Monetary Fund.\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- PRESS CENTER\n- Webcast\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2015/09/28/04/54/tr041615"
    }
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    "Published: April 16, 2015",
    "Event: Spring Meetings 2015 press briefing; Washington, D.C.; April 16, 2015.",
    "Managing Director: Christine Lagarde; First Deputy Managing Director: David Lipton; Moderator: Gerry Rice.",
    "Global growth forecasts (WEO cited by Managing Director):",
    "Assessment:",
    "Upcoming engagement: Spring Meetings discussions with Finance Ministers and Governors of Central Banks; IMF presence in October in Lima, Peru.",
    "Policy recommendation is a tailored package of demand-support measures that includes:",
    "Financial stability considerations to be addressed in tandem:",
    "Call for \"stronger financial policies\" to tackle these evolving risks.",
    "Observed trend: \"Potential growth rates are going down; we have revised downwards.\"",
    "Contributing factors cited:",
    "Required responses:",
    "Assertion: \"to get good, it needs to get better, and to get better, it can only be done together.\"",
    "Priorities for international cooperation:",
    "IMF-specific items highlighted:",
    "2015 framed as \"a special year for development\" (financing for development, sustainable development goals, climate change); IMF will engage with membership on these long-term goals.",
    "United States:",
    "Europe and Japan:",
    "Emerging markets and specific countries:",
    "Middle East:",
    "Africa (oil-exporting countries):",
    "Payment delays:",
    "Advice to Greece:",
    "IMF lending safety and institutional financing:",
    "Concerns highlighted:",
    "Recommended approach: reinforce international monetary system, expand safety nets, continue surveillance (FSAPs and bilateral/multilateral work) and engage authorities on spillovers and \"spillbacks.\"",
    "SDR review:",
    "AIIB:",
    "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)",
    "[Webcast](http://www.imf.org/external/spring/2015/mmedia/view.aspx?vid=4177298984001)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)"
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