🔻IMF and World Bank meetings in the shadow of Iran’s war, rising debts and a boom in artificial intelligence

Ministers of finance and central bank governors from around the world will gather this week in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, to take part in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings, as the global economy faces mounting pressure from higher energy prices resulting from the war by the United States and Israel against Iran, rising debts, and a boom in artificial intelligence.

The meetings will run from Monday to Saturday, and economic policymakers will face difficult decisions. The IMF has asked governments to rein in their spending, while sharply rising inflation and the risks stemming from climate change may require more support from the state for vulnerable groups.

Over the course of this week, senior economic officials will participate in closed-door meetings and public programs, and new decisions and policies will be announced.

The IMF is set to release its latest forecast on the state of the global economy on Tuesday, and in the following days it will also provide economic outlooks for different regions of the world.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, said at a meeting in Singapore last week: “In plain terms, the global economy is being shaped by two opposing forces: a negative supply shock from energy and a positive demand shock driven by artificial intelligence.”

She added: “The combined effect of these two forces is very uneven across different parts of the world.”