WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 (Xinhua)-- The world needs the cooperative action of all players to go beyond crisis as "we have challenges everywhere," the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said Friday.
In an internal interview published on Friday ahead of next month's annual IMF and World Bank meetings, Christine Lagarde stressed the importance of taking action at both the national and regional level in the euro zone, and the need for setting plans in the United States and Japan.
Lagarde urged policy makers to make sure the problems that actually created the economic crisis five years ago are really dealt with. Lagarde said she was particularly thinking about the financial sector.
"The United States has short-term and medium-term challenges as well, none of which are really appropriately addressed at the moment," Lagarde said.
She warned that the fiscal cliff caused by a combination of tax increases and automatic spending cuts next year would pose a threat both to the U.S. economy and the global economy as a whole.
She cautioned that in the longer term, there has to be an anchoring of expectations about the fiscal policy of the United States for it to address the deficit and debt issue.
Lagarde also noted that the IMF "has been working hard" to push forward the implementation of the 2010 quota and governance reform package.
So far, "huge progress has been made," she said, adding that the IMF will try to "get as close as possible to the finishing line" during the annual meetings.
|
