Friday, April 17, 2015

USA Today: Low Oil Prices get World Bank, IMF's Attention

Even as some are suggesting that the IMF and World Bank are about to by replaced by the new BRICS and Chinese led development banks, this USA Today article shows how this is really an inaccurate view of how things are unfolding. These new banks won't even be fully funded for a good while yet.  The new BRICS bank and the new Chinese led AIIB will start to influence the global financial system for sure next year. But these two banks combined are still only $200 billion in total funding. That's still much less than the IMF and World Bank have in funding capacity.

This USA Today article states that the IMF and World Bank estimate over $1 Trillion in infrastructure is needed every year globally. Plenty of room for all these institutions to play a role while the IMF remains the one global institution where all the nations of the world still meet in one place. Below are a few quotes from this USA Today article.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"One of the big factors in considering ways to reduce poverty around the world is the availability and cost of energy.
It's a perennial issue for the World Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund, and it promises to be as big as ever this week when those institutions hold their spring meetings in Washington."
. . . . . 
"In his own preview of the spring meetings, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim underscored the tremendous need for new infrastructure, putting the cost of new roads, bridges, railways, airports and energy plants at $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion a year."

No comments:

Post a Comment