Strong international cooperation on COVID-19 vaccines could boost the world economic recovery and add $9 trillion to global earnings by 2025, said Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Following a meeting of the IMF Steering Committee, Georgia also called on the United States and China to sustain a strong economic stimulus that could help fuel a global recovery.
In order to increase confidence in travel, investment, trade and other activities, she stressed the need for vaccines to be distributed evenly throughout the world in both developing countries and developed nations.
In its statement, the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF said that equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines globally would be crucial to preventing long-lasting scars on the world economy.
The committee stated that the involvement of private creditors and official bilateral creditors in debt relief for poor countries is necessary, with Georgieva adding that “further involvement of the private sector is still essential and remains an outstanding issue.”
Kristalina Georgieva MD – IMF
“If we may make fast progress everywhere, we could speed up the recovery. And we can add almost $9 trillion to global income by 2025 and that in turn could help narrow the income gap between richer and poorer nations. We need strong international cooperation and this is most urgent today for vaccine development and distribution.”
Recently, the G20 approveda six-month extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) to mid-2021, which freezes official bilateral debt payments and said a further six-month extension will be considered in April.
But private creditors and lenders are not fully participating in this move. “We are disappointed by the absence of progress of private creditors’ participation in the DSSI and strongly encourage them to participate on comparable terms when requested by eligible countries,” the steering committee said, while encouraging “the full participation of official bilateral creditors.”
IMF
Headquartered in the United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international body of 189 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, ensure financial stability, encourage international trade , promote high employment and sustainable economic development and reduce global poverty.
