Publication: Remarks at World Bank Group-IMF 2017 Spring Meetings Opening Press Conference
Loading...
Published
2017-04-20
ISSN
Date
2019-01-07
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, answered media questions at the 2017 Spring Meetings Press Conference 2017. He discuss the global economy. He mentioned that the bank faces several overlapping crises, both natural and man-made, all of which add urgency to the mission. He estimated that two-thirds of all jobs that currently exist in developing countries will be wiped out by automation. He seeks new and innovative ways to reach the poor, and make the world more secure and stable. He starts to address a problem by by asking whether the private sector can finance a project.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Kim, Jim Yong. 2017. Remarks at World Bank Group-IMF 2017 Spring Meetings Opening Press Conference. Delivered in Washington, DC, April 20, 2017;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31110 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Remarks at Opening Press Conference, World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, Washington, DC, April 16, 2015(2015-04-16)Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, discusses promoting strong economic growth in developing countries. He speaks about the need to invest in people, especially in education, health and to build social safety nets and protections against both natural disasters and pandemics to ensure that people don't remain trapped in extreme poverty. He talks about the challenges in trying to work in all kinds of complex political situations, so that whatever happens to be going on in the political sphere, we can continue to work to lift people out of poverty and boost shared prosperity. He talks about multilateralism that is always complicated and is always fraught with disagreements. He promises to continue to try to engage with governments to have that impact. He mentioned reports released about the Bank’s resettlement history. The transcript includes the Q&A session.Publication Remarks at Opening Press Conference, IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, Washington, D.C., April 18, 2013(2013-04-18)Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, discusses the issues to end extreme poverty in the World, promoting shared prosperity, and taking bold action on climate change. He speaks about accelerating the high growth rate in the developing world, and to translate this into poverty reduction and job creation. It must be inclusive to curb inequality. He insists that we must avert or mitigate potential shocks such as climate disasters or new crises in food, fuel, and finances. Climate change is not just an environmental challenge, but also a fundamental threat to economic development. He also believes that the combined efforts of the United Nations and the World Bank Group on the political and security fronts can make a major difference in moving fragile states out of fragility. He fields questions about a BRICS development bank, Chinese growth and inequality, the World Bank Group’s financial commitments on climate change, Peruvian poverty, loan conditionality, monetary policies of emerging countries, China’s urbanization, Caribbean economies, the Arab Spring countries, and Mexican economic reform.Publication Opening Press Conference at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings, April 10, 2014(2014-04-10)Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, notes that the developing countries will have to grow at a pace stronger than any time in the past 20 years to achieve the goal of ending the extreme poverty by 2030. He talks about the need for growth that is inclusive, creates jobs, and assists the poor directly. He calls for ensuring economic growth in the years ahead that is sustainable and takes us off the destructive path of climate change. He focuses on providing the best services possible in countries by keeping a strong presence in country offices and by providing global solutions to local problems. He is optimistic that countries and their partners will take it on, seize this opportunity and erase this stain of extreme poverty from our collective moral conscience once and for all. He fielded questions about China urbanization, Russo-Ukrainian tensions, Ghana’s dependence on the U.S. market, quality versus quantity of development aid, Middle East prospects, World Bank programs in Egypt, poverty in Paraguay, increased fees for advisory services, use of financial intermediaries, and climate change.Publication Opening Remarks at the 2019 Annual Meetings Opening Press Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-10-17)David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, highlighted the urgent priorities for discussion with shareholders. Global growth is slowing. Investment is sluggish, manufacturing activity is soft, and trade is weakening. The challenges of climate change and fragility are making poor countries more vulnerable. This backdrop makes our goals of reducing extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity even harder. He suggested that with the right mix of policies and structural reforms, countries can unleash growth that's broadly shared across all segments of society. He spoke about how the Bank is helping countries build strong programs tailored to the unique circumstances of their economies. He highlighted the importance of education. He mentioned the proposed IDA replenishment, and reaffirmed commitment to projects on climate and on gender inclusion. In conclusion, he said that the well-designed structural reforms are needed to unlock growth and build the foundations for future prosperity.Publication Spring Meetings Press Conference Opening Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04-20)These opening remarks were delivered by World Bank Group President David Malpass at Spring Meetings Press Conference on April 20, 2022. He said that we are facing COVID-19, inflation, and the war in Ukraine. He spoke about the World Bank Group has been acting fast in the face of the crises: first the Coronavirus (COVID-19) surge financing in over the last two years, which was one of the fastest and largest in our history; and now putting money into Ukraine and have moved quickly both to commitments and disbursements, including nearly 1.5 billion dollars that he announced in Poland last week. He mentioned that the World Bank Group is also working actively on climate, through its Climate Change Action Plan and the formation of Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs), which will identify the high priority items country by country, in their efforts to mitigate and to adapt to climate change. He was intrigued to see and welcomed India's moves the day before and that day to begin to sell from its stockpiles. He said that one of the solutions for the world is to recognize that markets are forward looking. He mentioned that the central banks can use tools that add to supply and that allow capital allocation to be improved. He concluded by saying that as interest rates rise, the debt pressures are mounting on developing countries, and we need to move urgently towards solutions.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Global Costs of Protectionism(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12)This paper quantifies the wide-ranging costs of potential increases in worldwide barriers to trade in two scenarios. First, a coordinated global withdrawal of tariff commitments from all existing bilateral/regional trade agreements, as well as from unilateral preferential schemes coupled with an increase in the cost of traded services, is estimated to result in annual worldwide real income losses of 0.3 percent or US$211 billion relative to the baseline after three years. An important share of these losses is likely to be concentrated in regions such as East Asia and Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean which together account for close to one-third of the global decline in welfare. Highlighting the importance of preferences, the impact on global trade is estimated to be more pronounced, with an annual decline of 2.1 percent or more than US$606 billion relative to the baseline if these barriers stay in place for three years. Second, a worldwide increase in tariffs up to legally allowed bound rates coupled with an increase in the cost of traded services would translate into annual global real income losses of 0.8 percent or more than US$634 billion relative to the baseline after three years. The distortion to the global trading system would be significant and result in an annual decline of global trade of 9 percent or more than US$2.6 trillion relative to the baseline in 2020.Publication Risky Business : Political Instability and Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment in the Arab World(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-12)Which foreign direct investments are most affected by political instability? Analysis of quarterly greenfield investment flows into countries in the Middle East and North Africa from 2003 to 2012 shows that adverse political shocks are associated with significantly reduced investment inflows in the non-resource tradable sectors. By contrast, investments in natural resource sectors and non-tradable activities appear insensitive to such shocks. Consistent with these patterns, the significant reduction in investment inflows in Arab Spring affected economies was starkest in the non-resource manufacturing sector. Political instability is thus associated with increased reliance on non-tradables and aggravated resource dependence. Conversely, how intensified political instability affects aggregate foreign direct investment is critically contingent on the initial sector composition of these flows.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Remarks to the Annual Meetings 2020 Development Committee(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10-16)David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, announced that the Board approved a fast track approach to emergency health support programs that now covers 111 countries. Most projects are well advanced, with average disbursement upward of 40 percent. The goal is to take broad, fast action early. The operational framework presented back in June has positioned the Bank to help countries address immediate health threats and social and economic impacts and maintain our focus on long-term development. The Bank is making good progress toward the 15-month target of 160 billion dollars in surge financing. Much of it is for the poorest countries and will take the form of grants or low-rate, long-maturity loans. IFC, through the Global Health Platform, will be providing financing to vaccine manufacturers to foster expanded production of COVID-19 vaccines in both part 1 and 2 countries, providing production is reserved for emerging markets. The Development Committee holds a unique place in the international architecture. It is the only global forum in which the Governments of developed countries and the Governments of developing countries, creditor countries and borrower countries, come together to discuss development and the ‘net transfer of resources to developing countries.’ The current International Financial Architecture system is skewed in favor of the rich and creditor countries. It is important that all voices are heard, so Malpass urged the Ministers of developing countries to use their voice and speak their minds today. Malpass urged consideration of how we can build a new approach to debt restructuring that allows for a fair relationship and balance between creditors and debtors. This will be critical in restoring growth in developing countries; and helping reverse the inequality.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.