IMF: 3 years of economic progress may disappear
Crystalina Georgieva, President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), attended the “Infrastructure, Investment and Central Europe: Three Seas Initiative” event organized by the Atlantic Council via video conferencing.
Pointing out that the COVID-19 outbreak is reshaping the world, Georgieva said, “We expect a cumulative loss of more than $ 12 trillion in the global economy in 2020 and 2021. This is roughly equivalent to the annual production of the Eurozone.” said.
Georgieva stated that China and some developed economies performed better than expected, but there was still a negative outlook in terms of growth.
Stating that the epidemic could destroy 3-year economic progress in central, eastern and southeastern European countries, Georgieva noted that it was a heavy blow for a region that had significant economic progress before the crisis.
Stressing the importance of infrastructure for economic recovery, Georgieva said there is a significant “infrastructure gap” in the region.
Pointing to the IMF’s “Infrastructure in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe” report, Georgieva underlined that the need for infrastructure investments in the region is very high.
Stating that central, eastern and southeastern European countries lag behind the 15 developed countries of the European Union (EU) in terms of infrastructure, by 2030, closing only half of this deficit compared to 15 developed EU countries will increase 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the countries in the region annually. noted that it could cost up to 8.
