Good morning. My concern is about the 2024 election. I hope we do not have the same election we had in 2020 where everybody received billions of dollars hello . Go ahead. [applause] welcome, everyone. I am the managing director. Always a pleasure to have you back. Right now even more so on the eve of a Spring Meeting coming up and you are back from a trip to china. We talked about a lot of these things. Before i start i wanted to remind you we have a lot of people watching this virtually so i want to remind all of you who are watching this virtually that you can send in questions if you have any, you can send them in by email or two events or on the Youtube Channels you are watching this on or on twitter. Any of those ways will hopefully reach us in time. I am sure there are people in the audience who have questions. Before we get to the questions i have questions of my own. First of all, welcome. A great pleasure to have you here. Thank you for the invitation. I want to start, i dont know how many of you had a chance to look at this, but the managing director of the ims had a speech at Kings College in cambridge two weeks ago and it was a speech, about the economic challenges of my grandchildren. And we may remember that from someone else who made a similar paper decades ago. Harkening back to the spirit of that paper, you also looked in that speech for the prospects of the next 100 years and drew out two scenarios. One would see per capita income standards double over the next 100 years and the others, seeing it increase tenfold depending on how the world organized itself over the coming decades on new challenges we face. I thought that was a nice framing and i thought we could come back a little bit. I am modest so i tend to look at the next decade. What are the prospects for the next decade . Could i get your sense, we were talking before we came in, in some ways it is clear what the challenges are. So clear what is needed to make progress, but yet when you look at the numbers whether it is growth numbers, the outlook for the next five to 10 years or investment numbers. Without investment it will not be any growth. Or you look at financial numbers. They took out a couple hundred billion dollars out of developing countries, the official sector put in some but could not compensate. You square all this and say, are we starting off on the lower trajectory . You have these two. Are we close to the bottom of it . How do you see the next decade . Then we will get into specifics. Ms. Georgieva the question is right to read what would determine whether we are on the lower growth trajectory for the next 100 years or on the high growth trajectory would be determined by first, how technology penetrates our economies, how inclusive we are in making it work for everybody. Second, how we make capital work for the best purpose and in the best places. This is where i differ from the case in which he emphasizes the accumulation of capital whereas i think today we need to focus on the allocation of capital. Capital goes through the countries where the population will increase and there will be this youthful labor force or not. Would it go to the green and Digital Trust information or not . These are choices we have to make with a clear head. There are consequences to how we make them. When i look at today, what makes me lose sleep at night is this low productivity, low growth trajectory for the next years. I remember vividly i started as managing director in 2019, just before covid. Gave my first speech. What was it about . Low productivity, and he meant growth anemic growth, and that is still the case after the pandemic. It would take determination to take something currently in insufficient supply and it is the will to cooperate. I look at the imf. I see two equally important tasks. One, make sure we have the Financial Capacity to operate, support, the next year these would be vulnerable, middle Income Countries and low Income Countries. We have to have the strength for them. Later i can come to how we build this strength. Two, make sure we bring our membership together. Despite all the difficulties in cooperation, we work towards consensus on those issues on which the future of our children and grandchildren depend. Mr. Ahmed i think that is great. Lets zoom in on what you just said and focus a bit on the imf. One part is financing, the other is bringing people together. Of course financing is accompanied with a set of policies that help countries do better when their own forces. On financing there is a persistent question people raise and i think it is good to get your response. I have a big Balance Sheet and you can strengthen it, we can talk about how it could be strengthened. When you look at the flows from the imf to emerging markets, developing countries. Last year i think the repayments were back. But they are fairly small in relation to the potential. Now is the time when countries need that financing. Are there ways in which one could envisage over the next five to seven years an imf that is a more active financier of emerging markets and developing countries and can we imagine a way in which the imf is able to respond more effectively to countries as they are hit by shocks . One thing you have made a big point of the last couple years is, we are going to be living in a more prone world. Can we a more shock prone world. And can we discuss what is holding back the ability to do more in way of subsidy . Ms. Georgieva first we need to recognize since the pandemic, 1 billion in liquidity and reserve. 650 billion, the 2021 allocation, which is adding Financial Capacity without adding debt. Very valuable, especially for the countries that must be distressed because of high debt levels. About 650 billion in lending which went to about 100 countries. We are a lender of last resort, you know that very well. We much prefer that we help countries create conditions for financial flows beyond the imf. We prefer to see more private sector, domestic and foreign investment. I would not think our job is to lend more, but lend as much as necessary to stabilize countries. I will give you a couple examples. Over the last few months, we had a sizable program for ukraine. An anchor for ukraine and mobilizes 120 billion in support over foru four years. We also have augmentation of a program from 3 billion to 8 billion. It is significant because it is an anchor for egypt where multiple sources of financing have come. When i look at our role, it is this, can we anchor a country and help it build sound microeconomic fundamentals that allow for growth to go up . It is a story for low Income Countries. Different story, in low Income Countries our role today is genuinely to provide sometimes lifesaving financial resources. And may be the audience knows, maybe you dont, traditionally for many decades, it was marginal when it comes to low Income Countries. Our average annual lending was around 1 billion for all low Income Countries. Since the pandemic we have recognized our responsibility to step up. We have in the years of the pandemic have more than quadrupled financing for low Income Countries. We created something on behalf of my colleagues i am very proud of. We have offered our richer members to lend to us and through us to direct them to low Income Countries and address climate vulnerabilities. Our lending capacity has expanded significantly. We are now at the point when we do not have a problem anymore of lending capacity. A couple days ago the u. S. Congress approved 21 billion loan, around 40 billion we have built over time. Now our issue is to guarantee subsidy resources to bring the cost of our lending to these countries down. At this point we lend at zero Interest Rate to low Income Countries, with the objective to be able to do low cost lending in the future. Possibly, and we are discussing this with our membership, possibly going more in the direction of the world bank in which there is some differentiation. Really poor countries get grants. We do not have much grant giving capacity. Mr. Ahmed zero interest. Ms. Georgieva zero Interest Rates for them. And then way below market, concessional rates for countries that are in better shape, so we can expand our liquidity provisions at capacity. I want to say this to the audience. It breaks my heart when i look at what the data tells us about advanced economies, emerging markets in low Income Countries. It tells us after the pandemic in advanced economies and emerging markets, it is much less than we anticipated. We projected some years ago. Why . Because these countries can pump money into the economy and prop it up. For low Income Countries, today they are on average 10 gdp less than they had before the pandemic. It is significant. The world bank is going for i think it is in the interest of global stability we are successful in getting that funding. Mr. Ahmed i think that is truly a priority for low Income Countries this year. One of the things about the financing of low Income Countries as you say is, being able to generate enough subsidy resources to enable you to bring down the cost of lending and may be going forward, hold zero Interest Rates. It could be more graduated depending on what needs are for different groups of low Income Countries. If i remember right, marrakech at the annual meeting there was discussion over how to generate those subsidy resources. There is periodically a question, all this gold sitting there, if you could sell 8 of your gold profits would be 10 billion, a lot of subsidy resources. Then people say, you have all these surcharges. 1 billion a year, 2 billion a year, going into the fund, sitting there, reserves building up. Why is it so hard to reallocate some of these funds to subsidize low Income Lending . Ms. Georgieva i am with you. Let me give you a perspective of how the conversation is going. First, there is a recognition the funds in low Income Countries is broader and bigger today. The membership is prepared to support it. When we were in marrakech, miracles happened. My predecessor called the marrakech meetings the marrakech miracles because we had a 50 increase which is massively better than bird resources and our finance team calculated if we take one dollar notes and light them up it will go to the moon and back, this subsidy. That gives us strength for those countries. The other miracle was, we reached our target for both lending, loan resources, and subsidy resources on the basis of two things. 41 countries making contributions, some of them for a first time, some of them not rich countries. That was solidarity and action. Two, we created an investment account. We invested. The income is more than the Interest Rate. This goes into the subsidy account. This kind of creativity is there. You are asking a very good question. Can the fund do more . Yes. We have started the conversation with membership on that basis. In 2011, ship very wisely said we need to have precautionary balances that are enough to guarantee against any potential losses on our Balance Sheet. Target 25 billion. This month, april, we will reach the target. What does it mean . It means with income still being higher because we lend so much over the last years, we can discuss, what do we do with this income in excess of our precautionary balances . It has not been an easy conversation because there are different interest. Some say, bring the cost on loans down. There are those that say, lets put more money into the subsidy account. There are those who say, you are telling us the world is more unpredictable . Lets put more in the percussion area balances. Mr. Ahmed you can never have enough. Ms. Georgieva the discussion will be constructive. We will come to the annual meetings and i think the world will like where we come. On the gulf sales. This is a matter of strong conviction among some of our members that selling gold is really last resort in case of unanticipated emergency. We have not yet gotten to a point many members would say some are saying, wait a minute, do not rush. But it is on the table, possibility. Mr. Ahmed i remember the conversation about gold. It went through the same process of some denial and opposition, ultimately you found a compromise i am sure when the time comes will find a compromise. What i took away from that segment is, between now and the annual meeting we should be aiming to be looking for some way in which one could meet all these different equally legitimate demands for how the Additional Resources could be used. Before we move on from financing, one final question. You talked about the fund thing a catalyst for mobilizing other financing. One of the other sources for financing is the most natural development. There are proposals about how the fund could help. Can you provide a backstop facility, etc. Lets see some that have not been explored. There is one on the table a couple years which is, can we use some of the reallocated sdr to provide them as loans to the ndbs in a way they could use those for quasiequity and leverage them up . I know this has been working its way through the system and is been a somewhat difficult process. I want to get your sense of where we are and where you think we will end up on that in the coming weeks . Ms. Georgieva where we are is, there is a discussion. Because this is you use of sdr s, it has to be approved by our board of directors. There are a number of supporters to go that way. Obviously they have to be willing to participate. It looks like there may be a sufficient number of them to create the hybrid capital. Where the difficulties this time i would be more amenable to the concerns of central banks. Think of sdrs as reserve assets. They are still absorbing the fact that we have created 100 billion equivalent of this reserve asset for lending. Now we say, here is another way to use it. There are very good reasons they are cautious. They say, are you sure you can protect this reserve . Then comes the question, would they be Critical Mass to secure that reserve quality . The way we reserve it and the credence creation of the resilience trust, is to pool sdr from many countries and on that basis we guarantee, if you want your sdrs, you can have it. It is one of these rare things in life where you can have your cake and eat it at the same time. We have to do the same cake eating, but maneuver to the development bank. To answer your question, i am quite sure a resolution would be found. Mr. Ahmed thank you. I see a few responses. Our got goto man. Ms. Georgieva ms. Georgieva you wrote a great paper. You explained to central bankers that they will still have their cake. Mr. Ahmed in this case you eat it, you get leverage four times. Ms. Georgieva you eat it and you have three more. [laughter] mr. Ahmed lets move to another area. It is the funds role in supporting countries. You have the rst, that is part of your response, but it goes beyond that in terms of looking at macro implications of Climate Change. What strikes me is, i think the first time there was a discussion in a flagship document in 2008. 15 years ago. There is still today, may in this audience, certainly the broader audience, people who think the imf is doing too much on Climate Change and trying to do stuff it should not be doing and others that think the imf is missing in action on Climate Change, such an existential question, should be doing more. You have to make progress and cross the river by i want to get your sense of, do you think this is more or less settled . Are we going to be saying the imf doing a lot more on Climate Change . In what ways are you pulling back . Ms. Georgieva lets recognize, in a world where there are still some who do not believe Climate Change is real, do not believe it is a human impact, it is natural there would be skepticism for anyone doing anything on climate. For the fund, first, we only do what we are good at. What matters to us is, the solution. In the case of Climate Change, why it matters to us, Climate Changes are already significant. They can wipe out the gdp of a country in one event. Because moving to the new climate economy is an opportunity for growth and jobs. We cannot ignore it. It is straight in our alley. It does not mean we can do everything related to Climate Change. We focus on three things. We look at the impact of Climate Risks and the presence of climate opportunities, adaptation, from the perspective of fiscal policy, monetary policy, Financial Sector policy. The areas in which we have competence. To make it simple, we have a lot of competence in the subsidies removal. Clearly removing fossil fuel clearly removing fossil fuel subsidies in a way that doesnt harm vulnerable parts of the population is part of the mitigation agenda. Very relevant for the fund. The fund is relevant for it. All climaterelated Financial Stability risks, if you have a bank that is concentrated in real estate, in very fragile area, obviously, this bank is a risk. And then we look at data. One of the things we do is to provide more higher utility data on climate for micropolicy decisions. So you can look at carbon intensity, vulnerability to climate shocks, in a context of how do you generate more growth in employment . And the third thing we do is we finance policy transformation using the resources of the resilient sustainability, trust again 42 billion. Heres the interesting part. We created it. When we created it, we didnt know what is going to happen, would anybody want to borrow from this trust . Today we have alr