## To Share and to Learn

_IMF News, December 8, 2025_

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**Canonical URL:** [To Share and to Learn](https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/12/08/sp-120825-to-share-and-to-learn)

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: December 8, 2025

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### Opening and purpose of the Center
- The Center is presented as a hub where "global expertise and local knowledge" come together to strengthen IMF engagement with the Asia and Pacific region.
- Purpose: promote cross-fertilization of ideas, enhance appreciation of Asian perspectives within the IMF, bridge IMF headquarters economists and economic scholars in Asia, and serve as a hub to promote policy-relevant research focused on middle income and emerging market economies.
- Emphasis on producing "top-quality macroeconomic research to inform and guide good policymaking" and on strengthening policy engagement across the IMF’s 191 member countries.

### Asia’s past growth drivers and structural change
- Three factors identified as powering Asia’s historical growth performance:
  - An expanding labor force (now receding).
  - Governments stepping out of economic activity to make room for the private sector.
  - Reallocation of workers and production from lower-productivity sectors (agriculture) to higher-productivity sectors (manufacturing and services).
- Structural change statistic:
  - The share of workers employed in agriculture has fallen "from almost 60 percent in 1990 to well below 30 percent today."
- Outcome: "a record decline in poverty and a better life for billions."

### Research agenda and key questions for the Center
- Overarching goal: help countries navigate transformations to build resilience, preserve stability, and promote growth through policy-relevant research.
- Three priority research questions highlighted:
  1. How can the business environment be improved to unleash the full potential of the private sector?
     - Focus on cutting red tape, easing regulatory barriers, and removing outdated regulations; research to inform reform priorities and sequencing.
  2. How can we make the best use of new technologies, including in the financial sector?
     - Need to balance innovation with safeguarding financial stability.
     - Artificial intelligence: "AI can boost growth by 0.1‒0.8 percentage points per year" (with policy emphasis on ensuring broad-based gains and mitigating labor market dislocations).
  3. How can countries maintain trade as an engine of growth amid a shifting global trade landscape?
     - Importance of reforms that deepen regional integration.
     - Example estimate: "reducing non-tariff barriers could lift GDP by 1.8 percent in the long run."
- Additional research theme: how specific reforms interact, especially given Asia’s "triple transformation"—shifting demographics, a new trade landscape, and the advent of artificial intelligence—and how policies should adapt to their confluence.

### Policy implications and recommendations
- Strengthen private sector-led productivity growth through:
  - Reforming the business environment: cut red tape, ease regulatory barriers, remove outdated regulations.
  - Pursue resource reallocation across sectors to raise productivity.
- Manage technological adoption to maximize benefits while protecting stability and workers:
  - Strike a balance between allowing innovation and safeguarding financial stability.
  - Ensure AI gains are broad-based through appropriate policy measures.
- Deepen regional integration and address impediments to trade:
  - Identify and reduce non-tariff barriers to unlock potential GDP gains.
- Use research to guide reform sequencing and to illuminate interactions among policies under the "triple transformation."

### Key statistics and exact figures from the remarks
- IMF membership: 191 member countries.
- Agriculture employment share: "from almost 60 percent in 1990 to well below 30 percent today."
- AI growth impact: "AI can boost growth by 0.1‒0.8 percentage points per year."
- Potential GDP gain from reducing non-tariff barriers in Asia: "1.8 percent in the long run."
- Date of remarks: December 7, 2025.

*Remarks by Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF — December 7, 2025.*

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## References

- [https://www.imf.org/en/about/senior-officials/bios/kristalina-georgieva](https://www.imf.org/en/about/senior-officials/bios/kristalina-georgieva)
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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/12/08/sp-120825-to-share-and-to-learn_