10/7/2010Global economic recovery still very fragile -- IMF Chief
WASHINGTON, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn affirmed Thursday that the global economic recovery "clearly is going on, but it's still very fragile".
Speaking to reporters during a briefing ahead of the Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group, due here on October 8-10, Strauss-Kahn stressed that recovery is "fragile partly because it's uneven." He indicated that in Asia and South America "you see a very high rate of growth, and obviously, for this part of the world, the crisis is over".
He added that in Europe, it remains to be "sluggish, and that's certainly part of the concern that we may have".
"It's still a big part of the global economy, and if this big part of the global economy doesn't go very far, then it has of course an influence on the rest," he stressed.
As for the U.S., Strauss-Kahn indicated that the situation is "uncertain".
Meanwhile, he said that he believes that recovery will end with a "double dip," saying "it's a tail risk but has very little probability to materialize." "One of the main features of this crisis has been the emergence of a willingness to work together, of a new kind of economic cooperation at the global level, which never had existed and never happened in the past," Strauss-Kahn noted.
"The momentum is not vanishing, but decreasing; it's a real threat because everybody has to keep in mind this mantra: that there is no domestic solution to a global crisis; and in a globalized economy and in a globalized world, there is no way to find its own solutions," he explained.
Central Bank Governors and finance ministers from the IMF's 187 member states will gather in Washington on Friday for the Annual Meetings, including Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah.
Sheikh Salem is also expected to attend the 22nd meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF Board of Governors.
