IMF’s Georgieva: Mideast conflict not going to be the last shock, we know it

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Wednesday, “what is happening in the Middle East is happening at a time when growth is slow and interest rates are high and cost of servicing debt has gone up because of covid and war.”

Georgieva added, “this is not going to be the last shock, we know it.”

Additional quotes

Why we are concerned, we are concerned first for the epicentre of this war, the tragic loss of lives but also destruction and reduction of economic activity.

Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan their channels of impact are already visible, tourism dependant countries and uncertainty is a killer for tourists.

Our focus is act early, do not hesitate the fund is here to help you restructure debt.

We have spent last 20 years living with interest rates in 'fantasy lane.'

We want to see normalization of policy over time.

We are not thrilled with going from zero to five soquickly, but we are there and now i call to everybody 'buckle up'.

Everyone should understand interest rates are here to stay for longer.

Good news is tightening we have witnessed is working and inflation is going down, bad news is it's not going down fast enough.

Green transition is adding for the next years to costs and it is a must to do it.

Inflation is terrible for growth, it undermines investor and consumer confidence and poor people pay the highest price.

Structural factors cannot be excuse to ignore fight against inflation, inflation is terrible for growth.

Interest rates are not suffocating they are just making life harder.

What makes me lose sleep is we are in a world of more frequent and devastating shocks.

How we think of unthinkable, create agility to buffer people, businesses from it when it happens is everyone's job.