The annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank took place in Bangkok, Thailand, last week. Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, Ásgeir Jónsson and Deputy Governor for Financial Stability Tómas Brynjólfsson participated in the meetings, together with other representatives of the Central Bank of Iceland. The Bank also met with IMF representatives, the Nordic-Baltic Constituency in the Fund, and with representatives of credit rating agencies and international financial institutions. Furthermore, Bank representatives attended symposia on matters pertinent to the Bank.
The Governor represents Iceland on the IMF Board of Governors, the highest ranking decision-making body of the Fund, and attended the meetings in that capacity. This year, Iceland also represented the Nordic-Baltic Constituency on the Fund’s International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC). The IMFC meets twice a year and comprises representatives of 25 member countries. Governor Ásgeir Jónsson and Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Daði Már Kristófersson participated in the IMFC meeting on behalf of the Constituency. As the Nordic-Baltic representative on the IMFC, the Governor issued a statement on the Constituency’s behalf. The IMFC advises the Board of Governors and shapes priorities for the work of the Fund’s Executive Board.
At the IMFC meetings, the Fund presented its assessment of developments and prospects for the global economy, financial stability, and public finances. Furthermore, the Fund’s Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, presented her Global Policy Agenda. In the Agenda and speeches given by other IMF senior officials, it became apparent that the global economy had shown considerable resilience despite a series of shocks. The outlook remains highly uncertain, however, and it is therefore important to enhance resilience, including by rebuilding fiscal buffers. The IMF’s global GDP growth forecast is broadly unchanged since the Fund’s spring meetings in April, but large-scale investment in AI has partly mitigated the adverse economic effects of heightened geopolitical tension. The title of this issue of World Economic Outlook was Resilience Under Strain, Urgent Choices. In the Global Policy Agenda, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva emphasised the importance of international cooperation and of joint efforts to address shared challenges.
The Global Policy Agenda can be found here:
The Managing Director's Global Policy Agenda, AM 2026: Navigating an Uncertain World
As before, noconsensus was reached on the text of the IMFC Communiqué as a whole, the IMFC Chair, Saudi Arabian Minister of Finance, released a Statement, which in key respects was supported by IMFC members. The statement is available here:
The statement by Ásgeir Jónsson, Central Bank Governor and the Nordic-Baltic Constituency’s representative on the IMFC, can be found here:
A range of other documents pertaining to the Fund’s most recent assessment of global economic developments and prospects are available on the IMF website:
International Monetary Fund website