Editorial
The Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank were concluded on 18th October. Both institutions recognised that the global economy is embarking on a lengthy path to recovery after the severe contraction of 2020. Recovery experts say could take more than a decade, which would be a devastating setback to all those who had been working to lift themselves out of poverty. The IMF and WBG have warned that “if the global response fails the world’s poor and vulnerable people now, the losses they have experienced to date may be dwarfed by what lies ahead.” The WBG announced a 15-month target of $160 billion in surge financing for the poorest countries, and approved additional financing of up to $12 billion to help countries purchase and distribute vaccines.
China’s economy in 2021 is forecast to be 10% bigger than it was in 2019, while every other major economy will be smaller. China’s role in the global economy will continue to expand. The IMF’s latest projections for Latin America and the Caribbean forecast GDP contracting by upwards of 8.1 percent for this year. Our government must come clean about what has happened to the reserves that stood at over $800 million when Labour demitted office in February 2015.