## New Challenges, New Ideas, New Actions

_IMF News, June 24, 2021_

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [New Challenges, New Ideas, New Actions](https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2021/06/23/sp062421-new-challenges-new-ideas-new-actions)

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: June 24, 2021

---

### Remarks overview
- Speaker: IMF Deputy Managing Director Tao Zhang
- Event: Caixin Summer Summit 2021
- Date: June 23, 2021
- Main themes: global recovery from COVID-19; vaccination as priority economic policy; climate change as “our most global challenge”

### Vaccination as economic policy
- Assertion: “vaccine policy is the most important economic policy at the moment.”
- Observation: global economy has gradually stabilized and begun the march toward full recovery, bolstered by substantial policy support and vaccine availability, particularly among advanced economies.
- Risk: increasingly two-track pandemic leading to a two-track recovery, detrimental to global prosperity.
- Drivers of slower recovery: slower vaccine rollout; more limited policy support; more reliance on contact-dependent sectors like tourism.
- Concern: gradual removal of monetary accommodation in faster-recovering, large economies may have implications for economic and financial stability.
- Interim measures while vaccine supply is limited:
  - widespread testing and tracing
  - therapeutics
  - effective public health measures
  - ramping up preparations for vaccine deployment

### IMF $50 billion plan to end the pandemic
- Plan size: $50 billion
- Coverage targets:
  - vaccinate at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by end-2021
  - vaccinate at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022
- Required elements:
  - additional grants to the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX)
  - more surplus doses donated to regions with vaccine shortages
  - free cross-border flows of raw materials and finished vaccines
  - vigilance against new variants
  - expand investment in vaccine production capacity
  - diversify vaccine production
  - develop contingency plans to handle supply shocks
- Economic payoff: the $50 billion price tag could generate an estimated $9 trillion in additional output by 2025
- Characterization: “if successfully implemented, the plan will become the best public investment ever.”

### IMF actions and financing
- IMF preparing a new Special Drawing Rights allocation, described as “unprecedented in its size,” to boost international reserves and liquidity of all member countries.
- IMF is considering how to provide greater funding support to all member countries with vaccination needs.

### Climate change policy
- Framing: climate change described as “our most global challenge.”
- Goal: take strong policy steps to keep global temperature increase to within 2 degrees.
- Policy tools emphasized:
  - critical role for carbon pricing
  - flexibility to include regulatory and other approaches
  - call for an international carbon price floor—possibly differentiated according to each country’s level of development—as a way of achieving multilateral progress
- Development and fairness:
  - need to identify win-win opportunities for the climate and the economy
  - good mitigation policy can often largely pay for itself and further development
  - imperative to fulfill commitments to providing climate financing and technology transfers to less developed countries so they will not fall behind

### Closing remarks
- Praise: China has started implementing measures to achieve the ambitious target of carbon neutrality by 2060, while assisting other less developed countries with vaccines and funding.
- Call to action: secure the current recovery, maintain economic and financial stability, and create a more inclusive, smarter, and greener future.
- Final well-wishes: wishes for a successful Caixin Summer Summit 2021.

*Source: Remarks by IMF Deputy Managing Director Tao Zhang, Caixin Summer Summit 2021, June 23, 2021.*

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## References

- [Tao Zhang](https://www.imf.org/en/About/senior-officials/Bios/tao-zhang)
- [People's Republic of China and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/CHN/index.htm)
- [Speeches](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)
- [PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)
- [our most global challenge](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2021/06/02/sp060221-dmd-zhang-green-swan-conference)
- [https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2021/06/23/sp062421-new-challenges-new-ideas-new-actions_