The Indian Panorama

Tag: Gita Gopinath

  • Advanced economies to be back on track by 2024: IMF

    Advanced economies to be back on track by 2024: IMF

    DAVOS (TIP): Advanced economies will be back on track by 2024 but developing economies will be 5% below where they would have been otherwise, IMF’s Gita Gopinath said on Wednesday, May 25. Economies worldwide have been adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and are slowly coming back into the recovery path.

    The First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund said the war in Ukraine has been a major setback to the global recovery. “We had a serious downgrade to the global growth rate and the world continues to face headwinds because we have a cost of living crisis. Prices of commodities, including fuel and food, are going up around the world,” she said. Gopinath said central banks are trying to tackle this high level of inflation and are raising interest rates sharply, which they need to do, but that will also have consequences for global finance and trade.

    She was speaking at a special session on ‘What next for global growth?’ during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022. Gopinath said there are very divergent recoveries around the world.

    “While advanced economies, as per our estimates, will basically get back to where they would have been in the absence of pandemic in 2024, but emerging and developing economies would be 5% below where they would have been in the absence of the pandemic,” she said. The panelists discussed that the recovery from the Covid crisis has been deeply uneven within and between countries, depending on their access to fiscal resources and vaccines. As food, fuel and resource crises now risk further derailing an equitable recovery, they discussed how a broader set of foundations for growth can ensure long-term economic prosperity and a return to international convergence.

    (Source: PTI)

  • India good at managing finances but global energy price rise will hurt it, says IMF MD

    Washington (TIP)-India has been very good at managing its finances but the surge in global energy prices is going to have a negative impact on its economy, said Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. During a media roundtable on Thursday, March 10,  on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its global impact, Gita Gopinath, who is the First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, observed that the war had posed a challenge to economies around the world, including India. “India relies heavily on energy imports and the price is going up. That has implications on the purchasing power of Indian households. “If you’re looking at headline inflation numbers, inflation in India is close to around six per cent, which is the upper end of the inflation band for the Reserve Bank of India,” Gopinath said. This has implications on the monetary policy in the country and it is a challenge in many parts of the world, not just India, she said.

                    Source: PTI

  • Indian American economist Gita Gopinath to return to Harvard University in January

    Indian American economist Gita Gopinath to return to Harvard University in January

    BOSTON (TIP): Indian American Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist and Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will resign in January 2022 and return to Harvard University, the Fund’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva announced on October 19.

    The IMF appointed the 49-year-old economist as Chief Economist in January 2019. When she joined the global lender, she was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard.

    The university granted her a one-year leave of absence on an exceptional basis, allowing her to work for the IMF for three years. Gopinath, who was born in Mysuru, is the IMF’s first female Chief Economist.

    She is the head of the IMF’s research department, which publishes the World Economic Outlook report every quarter, which contains the closely followed GDP growth estimates.

    “Gita’s contribution to the Fund and our membership has been truly remarkable —quite simply, her impact on the IMF’s work has been tremendous,” Georgieva said. “She made history as the first female Chief Economist of the Fund and we benefitted immensely from her sharp intellect and deep knowledge of international finance and macroeconomics as we navigate through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

    According to the IMF, Gopinath co-authored the Pandemic Paper on how to end the Covid-19 pandemic, which established universally recognized objectives for vaccination the world, as one of her major achievements.

    She is the third woman to hold a tenured post in Harvard’s prestigious economics department, and the first Indian to do so since Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

    Gopinath has been widely published in top economics journals and has received numerous honors, including election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

    Growing up in India, Gopinath did not know anyone who worked in economics, the profile noted. It was more common for children to aspire to become a doctor or an engineer.

    She studied science through high school and when her parents’ friends suggested that she would enjoy success working for the country’s administrative services, she went to Delhi to study economics.