IMF, World Bank Leaders Call for Inclusive Globalization

Washington — International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank leaders on Thursday called for measures to promote inclusive growth and resist anti-trade sentiments.

“Globalization has worked over the years, that it has delivered great benefits to many people. We do not think that it is time to push against it,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a press conference on Thursday.

Lagarde said that in the past decades, the growth driven by international trade has helped countries like China and India to pull them out of massive poverty. “Trade has been in the main a great engine for growth,… we need that engine in order to support and accelerate growth,” said Lagarde.

At the press conference, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim also expressed his concern about the slowing global economy hit by falling commodity prices and stagnating global trade.

He said that trade and openness of the economy were the two keys for China to lift seven million people out of poverty in a rapid way. Kim called on all developing countries to embrace trade and open economy in order to end extreme poverty.

Both Lagarde and Kim called for investments in infrastructure and human beings in order to accelerate inclusive and sustainable growth.

In regard to the inclusion of China’s Renminbi in the Special Drawing Right (SDR) basket, Lagarde said that it “certainly anchors the Chinese economy in the group of large, international, open economies in the world.” She expected China will continue its reforms.

World Bank President also gave much credit to China’s poverty reduction. “Without China, we’d have no chance to even think about ending extreme poverty,” said Kim, adding that China will be a very important partner in the World Bank’s effort to end extreme poverty. (PNA/Xinhua) FPV/EDS