International Finance Forum Calls for Global Cooperation as Inflation Continues

International Finance Forum (IFF) is urging countries and regions to work better together to fight against worsening global inflation, in a bid to bring recovery of the global economy back on track.

On April 27 at the IFF spring meetings, world leaders and industry experts teased out the main economic challenges faced by the global community at the moment and discussed potential solutions as to how countries could cooperate to introduce policy adjustments amid the ongoing pandemic.

In a keynote speech, Domenico Siniscalco, IFF Vice President and Former Minister of Economy and Finance of Italy, said most countries injected a lot of liquidity into their economies between 2008 and 2011 to tackle economic crises and again during the global Covid-19 pandemic, and that rate of inflation has remained at a high level in emerging economies.

Siniscalco pointed out that relatively speaking, inflation in Asia has been generally well managed and controlled, primarily thanks to sound management of the economy as a whole.

While price rises in energy, food and agricultural products may bring enormous pressure on economic growth and result in societal issues, governments will thus have to introduce measures to deal with the issues and control inflation, Siniscalco added.

Specifically, Siniscalco said that China, Europe and the U.S. should work together to tackle the issues of increasing food and energy prices.

From a supply chain and industrial chain perspective, Song Min, IFF Academic Committee Member and Dean of Economics and Management School of Wuhan University, said at the IFF meetings that while Western countries are entering a post-pandemic phase, the strain in industrial chain and supply chain may be alleviated in the short term. Song noted that as geopolitical turbulence continues, uncertainties remain as to how the global industrial chain and supply chain would be affected.

Robin Xing, Chief China Economist of Morgan Stanley, holds a positive view on Asian economic outlook amid a global inflation situation, and remains confident in China’s measures to offset the slowdown of the economic growth. Despite ongoing headwinds, including factors such as geopolitical unrest, inflation and Fed rate spike, Asian economies are better able to manage these headwinds than they did in previous cycles over the past few decades.

Xing said Morgan Stanley remains optimistic that China would be able to make timely policy adjustments to boost economic recovery to some degree in the second half of this year and next year.

About International Finance Forum

IFF is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental international organization founded in Beijing in 2003. Established by financial leaders from more than 20 countries, regions and international organizations including China, the US, EU and UN, the forum is a long-standing, high-level platform for dialogue and communication. For more information, please visit: http://www.iff.org.cn/php/list.php?tid=477

SOURCE: International Finance Forum (IFF)