Istanbul Meetings to Develop Strategy for Recovery Period

AuthorInternational Monetary Fund

The Annual Meetings, which will be preceded by the September 24-25 summit of 20 advanced and emerging market economies in Pittsburgh, will be pivotal in setting strategy for the aftermath of the worst crisis to hit the global economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Turkey is hosting the October Meetings that will bring together finance ministers, central bankers, leading businessmen, academics, and members of civil society organizations from 186 countries to discuss how to nurture the nascent recovery now emerging.

No time to relax

While coordinated policy action by the world's leading economies has helped pull the global economy back from the brink, IMF officials are stressing that this is no time to relax. In a speech at the Bundesbank in Berlin on September 4, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn emphasized that the recovery will be sluggish and that a jobless recovery remains a risk. "I am concerned about the social and economic costs of high unemployment, which will persist even as financial markets and output stabilizes," he said.

"While the worst has been avoided, the healing process is far from complete," said IMF First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky on the Fund's Blog, iMFdirect. "Positive growth prospects for the coming year rest on the assumed implementation of a set of substantial policy actions and on private sector follow-through."

At a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Twenty (G-20) countries in London on September 4-5, policymakers recognized that "financial markets are stabilizing and the global economy is improving, but we remain cautious about the outlook for growth and jobs, and are particularly concerned about the impact on many low income countries."

Path to recovery

The IMF says the global economy is beginning to pull out of its deepest recession since the Great Depression, but the recovery is uneven and remains dependent on policy support. Economic data from advanced and emerging market countries show that the worst of the recession is over, with rates of decline leveling off and some recording positive growth. While financial conditions in mature and emerging markets have continued to improve, the global financial system is far from returning to normal, and many markets remain highly dependent on public support.

Going forward, the pace of...

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