Participants: Rodrigo Valdes, Director, Western Hemisphere Department (WHD), IMF Ana Corbacho, Deputy Director, WHD, IMF Luis Cubeddu, Deputy Director, WHD, IMF Moderator: Julie Ziegler, Senior Communications Officer, IMF MS. ZIEGLER: Good morning. Welcome everyone. This is the press briefing for the Regional Economic Outlook for the Western Hemisphere. My name is Julie Ziegler, and I am with the Communications Department at the Fund. I'm going to introduce our panel today. To my immediate left is Rodrigo Valdes, who. the Director of the Western Hemisphere Department. And...

Read more

Growth is projected to hold steady, but amid weakening prospects and rising threats, the world needs a shift in policy gears Blog Post by Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas | Let’s start with the good news: it looks like the global battle against inflation has largely been won, even if price pressures persist in some countries. After peaking at 9.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022, we now project headline inflation will fall to 3.5 percent by the end of next...

Read more

By Matthias Rumpf | People have tended to be quite hesitant to trust banks abroad. That seems to be changing. In a post featuring interactive charts for you to explore, The ECB Blog shows that cross-border bank deposits of private households have picked up recently. To what extent are euro area households making use of cross-border deposits? Are households in smaller countries more likely to open accounts abroad and, if they do so, which countries do they choose? This ECB...

Read more

Tokenisation has the potential to offer benefits to the financial system, such as increased efficiency and transparency, but it may also have financial stability implications. This report is focused on a subset of tokenisation initiatives – tokenisation based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) as the underlying technology platform – assessed to be the most relevant for financial stability based on recent market developments. In particular, the report focuses on the tokenisation of financial assets, such as tokenised money that may...

Read more

Washington, D.C. – October 21, 2024: The Principality of Liechtenstein became a member of the IMF today when Prime Minister Daniel Risch signed the Fund’s Articles of Agreement during a ceremony in Washington D.C. Liechtenstein applied for IMF membership in May 2023 (See Press Release 23/190). Subsequently, an IMF team visited Vaduz during November 27-December 8, 2023 (See Press Release 23/430). The principality's decision to join the IMF was confirmed by a majority in a national referendum conducted on September...

Read more

Five international organisations today released a landmark report that outlines pathways for co-ordinated approaches on climate action, carbon pricing, and the cross-border effects of climate change mitigation policies with a view to achieving global climate goals. The report was presented on 23 October by the Joint Task Force on Climate Action, Carbon Pricing, and Policy Spillovers, convened by the World Trade Organization and joined by the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations Trade and...

Read more

Program will drive U.S. leadership in semiconductors as well as provide the critical technology and skilled workforce needed for U.S. semiconductor packaging Today, the Biden-Harris Administration issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) funded by the CHIPS and Science Act to enable the United States semiconductor industry to adopt innovative new advanced packaging flows for semiconductor technologies. This investment comes as part of the President’s overarching Investing in America agenda, which is increasing American competitiveness and boosting manufacturing in industries of...

Read more

Non-Technical Summary One of the most dramatic trends in financial markets over the last decade has been the rise of sustainable investing. Many prominent institutions, such as the European Central Bank, now publicly support sustainable investing. It is often argued that sustainable investing can incentivize firms to act more sustainably by decreasing the cost of capital firms have to pay for their green investments. Despite the prominence of this idea, it is unclear whether sustainable investing influences firm behavior through...

Read more

The Commission has adopted today the first implementing rules on cybersecurity of critical entities and networks under the Directive on measures for high common level of cybersecurity across the Union (NIS2 Directive). This implementing act details cybersecurity risk management measures as well as the cases in which an incident should be considered significant and companies providing digital infrastructures and services should report it to national authorities. This is another major step in boosting the cyber resilience of Europe's critical...

Read more

More excellent research, impactful innovation and technology scale-ups are needed to make Europe more globally competitive, secure and sustainable. These are among the twelve expert recommendations presented today to the Commission to strengthen Horizon Europe, the EU research and innovation programme, and its successor. The recommendations have been drafted by an independent group of 15 leading experts chaired by Manuel Heitor, former secretary of state for science, technology and higher education of Portugal. Their report, entitled ‘Align, Act, Accelerate: Research,...

Read more