Press Release No. 13/501

Press Release: IMF to Focus on Assisting Countries to Achieve Strong and Inclusive Growth

December 12, 2013

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will focus in the months ahead on assisting its member countries to move from stabilization to growth, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde stated in the IMF’s bi-annual work program. The program was considered by the IMF’s Executive Board on November 25, 2013 and  builds on the October 2013 IMFC Communiqué and Global Policy Agenda (GPA), which identified a range of actions needed to break the cycle of subdued growth and recurrent market jitters that has characterized the global recovery to date. 

“The global recovery has been uneven and more subdued than hoped. Moving from stabilization to strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth remains a work in progress and requires more ambitious policy implementation. The IMF will assist its members in delivering on this task, including through assessments and policy advice provided in the context of bilateral and multilateral surveillance, as well as capacity building and financial support,” Ms. Lagarde told the Executive Board in presenting the work program.

To achieve this objective, the IMF will focus its analysis for advanced economies on the appropriate macroeconomic policy mix to support the recovery, including growth-friendly fiscal consolidation and the sequencing and impact of the eventual normalization of unconventional monetary policy. The IMF will also continue to help countries address legacy issues from the global crisis and discuss reforms to stimulate job creation. The Fund will assist emerging market economies in strengthening their resilience to spillovers from the global transition to more normal financial conditions, and will examine the trajectory of potential growth in these economies to continue to identify reforms that could support strong growth in the future. 

In low-income countries, the IMF will assist to strengthen policy buffers against shocks and advance policies to help achieve more inclusive growth going forward, with a particular focus on capacity building. The Fund will continue to implement tailored work agendas in support of the Arab countries in transition, as well as fragile and small states.

In addition to assisting countries to boost growth, the work program prioritizes efforts in other areas, including:

• Strengthening fiscal policy frameworks to reduce vulnerabilities and address debt sustainability risks.
• Examining how structural reforms can support growth and job creation.
• Facilitating coordinated action and international cooperation on matters such as policy spillovers and global imbalances, including by better integrating the various strands of surveillance work with the analysis of multilateral policy consistency and cross-border spillovers.
• Supporting the effective implementation of the global financial system reform agenda, monitoring and identifying risks to financial stability, and assisting efforts to deepen financial sectors in emerging and developing economies.
• Strengthening the Fund’s lending framework, including from a perspective of reducing stigma and dealing with large swings in capital flows and potential crises.