## Opening Remarks by Deputy Managing Director Kenji Okamura at the Eleventh Tokyo Fiscal Forum

_IMF News, June 10, 2026_

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: June 10, 2026

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### Context and immediate risks
- Remarks delivered at the 11th Tokyo Fiscal Forum (June 10, 2026).
- Global economy affected by the war in the Middle East, which is:
  - disrupting energy markets,
  - pushing up prices,
  - weighing on growth.
- Oil importers and countries with limited buffers are being hit the hardest; some countries in the region are grappling with fuel shortages.
- The forum is co-hosted with the PRI of Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank Institute; Japan provides continued generous support.

### Fiscal challenges and key statistics
- Global public debt is at a historical high, at around 94 percent of GDP.
- Interest spending has climbed rapidly, to nearly 3 percent of GDP.
- The room for maneuver will narrow further as countries face:
  - higher energy and food prices,
  - rising defense spending,
  - mounting interest bills.
- Policymakers face difficult trade-offs between short-term support and medium-term fiscal sustainability.

### Findings and policy implications
- Governments must balance:
  - protecting the most vulnerable, with
  - preserving market price signals.
- Once the condition stabilizes, governments must rebuild buffers in an environment of increased spending pressures.
- The key challenge: rebuild buffers and preserve fiscal sustainability in a way that doesn’t create new vulnerabilities.
- Research highlights opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of spending, including by avoiding broad-based subsidies that are costly and regressive.

### Forum themes and recommended actions
- Theme 1 (fiscal policy and growth): how building fiscal space in a growth-friendly manner or changing the composition of spending can improve fiscal dynamics.
  - Focus areas: improve quality and efficiency of spending; avoid broad-based, costly, regressive subsidies.
- Theme 2 (GovTech): how stronger public financial management and revenue administration can help countries do more with limited resources by:
  - improving compliance,
  - strengthening spending controls,
  - enhancing transparency (critical for building public support for difficult policy choices).
- Interest in peer learning: the forum aims to surface how countries are applying latest technologies in innovative ways.

### IMF support and collaboration
- The IMF is scaling up capacity development:
  - in collaboration with development banks,
  - through the Global Public Finance Partnership—to which Japan and Korea are generous contributors from the region.
- The IMF invites suggestions on how to enhance its support and strengthen the forum and other peer-learning platforms.

### Closing
- The speaker looks forward to productive and insightful discussions at the forum.

*Opening Remarks by Deputy Managing Director Kenji Okamura at the Eleventh Tokyo Fiscal Forum, June 10, 2026.*

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## References

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2026/06/10/sp061026-dmd-speech-the-eleventh-tokyo-fiscal-forum_