Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde said the international lending agency considers its partnership with member countries as partnership of the present and for the future.
“The philosopher Edmund Burke described society as a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection…a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. This is how I see the IMF,” she said.
The IMF MD made the remark while addressing a function ‘The Future Global Economy and the Future Fund’ in Washington on Friday, according to a message received here on Saturday.
“In just the next decade, the share of emerging and developing economies in global GDP will increase from about half to nearly two-thirds and per capita incomes will converge across countries, with a rapidly expanding middle class in those nations”, Lagarde said.
“So the stage is set for a world, 20 or 30 years from now, where economic power will be far less concentrated in the advanced economies—and more vastly dispersed across all regions.”
Today, the world economy is not simply connected, it is hyperconnected and this will propel financial integration on a scale not yet quantified, and to corners of the world not yet reached, Lagarde said.
“As emerging and developing countries grow and converge, their financial interconnections will become deeper and more complex.”
She said almost 70 years ago, the IMF, founded on the spirit of international cooperation, began with some 40 members. “Today, there are 188 of you. Together we are the Fund. You are the Fund.”
But, more than that, she said, the principles – flexibility, focus, service -have helped them stand the test of time.
“The IMF must be flexible in its approach and focused on its core goals to best serve you, our members. Flexibility, focus, service—those are our guiding principles”, she said.
Source: UNBConnect