Asian Tour: IMF Participates in the ASEAN, G20, and APEC Summits 

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva made an Asian tour in November to attend the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia, the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Indonesia, and the APEC Summit in Thailand, conveying the Fund’s unwavering messages of international collaboration to address geopolitical and other challenges. While in the region, she met with world leaders, country authorities, and key stakeholders to discuss pressing global and regional issues such as the state of the world economy, the challenges of energy and food security, and how to strengthen global cooperation and reduce fragmentation risks. In Phnom Penh, she called “ASEAN as a bright spot” and said its experience can be a model for the world to resist the forces of fragmentation. In Bali where discussions centered around food and energy security, Ms. Georgieva called for “allowing trade to do its job” by removing barriers. In Bangkok, she said that APEC gains most from integration and asked the countries to stay connected. Read her speech 1, 2, 3

Financial Resilience Discussed at IMF-UTokyo Policy Conference in Tokyo

Opening a policy conference in Tokyo on November 17 to discuss how to best manage financial risks and avoid a financial crisis, IMF Deputy Managing Director Kenji Okamura said that shocks will likely be more frequent in the future and that we must build buffers and strengthen resilience to be prepared. The conference, Managing Financial Risks in a Shock Prone World, was organized jointly by the IMF and The University of Tokyo’s Center for Advanced Research in Finance (CARF). During the conference, experts discussed the risks from de-globalization and fragmentation and agreed that less global integration would be costly, reducing growth and increasing inflation, and that more cooperation is needed to solve challenges such as climate change. They also drew lessons from the policy measures taken around the world to address the COVID-19 pandemic and suggested that policies should be more targeted and that the non-bank financial sector should be made more resilient. Visit the website for video archive and read FB 1,2,3.

New Director Aims High to Lead the IMF Regional Office in Asia and the Pacific

Former official of the Japanese Ministry of Finance, Akihiko Yoshida, assumed the directorship of the IMF Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (OAP) on December 1. He replaces Mr. Chikahisa Sumi, who stepped down from the director’s position after six years in tenure before his official retirement in 2023. Building on the foundation established by his predecessors and his rich experience in leading public offices in the ministry, Mr. Yoshida pledged to make OAP more visible to the outside world and better serve the Asia Pacific region. “Leveraging on its achievement over the past 25 years, OAP will never stop evolving into an even more useful resource for policy makers, academics, and other constituencies in the region,” he writes in his message. “I am committed to lead this evolution from the front, taking full advantage of my experience both at the IMF headquarters and the Japanese government.” Read his message here.