## MD Statement G20 Leaders’ Summit

_IMF News, November 23, 2025_

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**Canonical URL:** [MD Statement G20 Leaders’ Summit](https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/11/23/pr-25388-md-statement-g20-leaders-summit)

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: November 23, 2025

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### Publication details and setting
- Press Release No. 25/388
- November 23, 2025
- Delivered by International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
- Press officer: Rahim Kanani; Phone: +1 202 623-7100; Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

### Opening and context
- First time G20 Leaders convened in Africa.
- A shared common theme at the Summit: the importance of building resilience amid sweeping policy shifts and deep transformations.
- Gratitude expressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Government of South Africa, Minister Godongwana, and Governor Kganyago for leadership.

### Global outlook: resilience through domestic reforms
Findings:
- "The global economy is doing better than we feared, but worse than we need."
- Resilience anchored in:
  - a vibrant private sector;
  - policies and institutions strengthened over the years, including through G20 coordination.
- Persistent problems:
  - Growth "is stubbornly low – below pre-covid levels."
  - Debt "is exceptionally high, stifling many countries, especially poorer ones."
- Drivers of heightened uncertainty and risks: geopolitical tensions, technological and demographic transformations, frequent severe climate events.

Policy imperatives:
- Governments must build confidence through credible, predictable, and sustainable actions.
- Restore policy buffers and preserve institutional strength.
- Address domestic imbalances to help reduce global imbalances.
- Implement structural reforms to harness private-sector potential and remove obsolete norms and regulations.

### Policy cooperation
Findings and priorities:
- Acting at home must be complemented by acting together; policy cooperation is especially vital in a time of uncertainty.
- Trade must remain a powerful engine of growth, with enhanced rules reflecting the digital economy and global diversity.
- Mobilize fresh financing—public and private—for countries in need.

Debt action:
- "Action on debt must also be more decisive."
- Good progress under the Common Framework, but "more effort is needed to deliver faster and more predictable debt restructurings."
- Call for all creditors to "step forward when we can."
- IMF policy changes to "more actively help countries reduce debt."

Acknowledgement:
- Recognition of South Africa's leadership of the G20 and the October Declaration on Debt as providing "a clear road map for the future."

### IMF role, resources, and programs
Key statistics and commitments:
- IMF is "enlarging our permanent quota resources by 50 percent."
- Providing "record high level of financing to our members – 50 programs, of which 21 are in sub-Saharan Africa."
- IMF support combines tailored policy advice and capacity development efforts.

### Harnessing AI Opportunities for All
Findings:
- Slow productivity growth is the main reason for slow overall growth.
- "AI can deliver almost 1 percent additional economic growth."
- AI is "penetrating our societies extremely rapidly."

Labor market impacts (by country group):
- Advanced economies: potentially 60 percent of jobs affected.
- Emerging markets economies: 40 percent of jobs affected.
- Low-income countries: 26 percent of jobs affected.
- Characterization: "AI is like a tsunami hitting the labor market."

Readiness index (four dimensions):
- Digital infrastructure (example: India highlighted as a champion).
- Skills and flexible labor markets.
- Diffusion — the extent to which AI affects the rest of the economy.
- Ethics and regulation.

Assessment:
- Wide divergence across countries: few doing very well on all dimensions; many doing well on some; a group of mostly developing countries falling behind.

Policy recommendations:
- Domestic policies to rapidly improve AI readiness, especially:
  - skills development;
  - enabling infrastructure, especially power;
  - taxation that favors innovation without favoring machines over people.
- Support development of a common platform for ethics and regulation, spearheaded by the United Nations.
- Assist developing countries to avoid falling behind to ensure AI becomes "a force of prosperity for all."

### Concluding remarks
- Thanks to President Ramaphosa for leadership and hospitality.

*Source: MD Statement G20 Leaders’ Summit, International Monetary Fund, November 23, 2025.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/11/23/pr-25388-md-statement-g20-leaders-summit_