International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has today urged all parties to continue moving in the direction of a sustained lasting peace following a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit the entire region.
Georgieva, speaking during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, said she was relieved when the recent ceasefire was reached for the sake of all the people affected by the two-year war in the Palestinian enclave.
She said lowered tensions would be good news for the economies of Egypt and Jordan, where the IMF has programmes, and Lebanon and Syria, which have asked for help and support from the global lender.
"It is important because everybody concerned encourages this direction of sustaining a lasting peace, and yes, it would benefit the region," she said.
"There will be a peace dividend for everybody," she added.
Georgieva said the IMF was working with Lebanon, which had requested a loan programme. "I hope we will be able to come up with a programme," she said, without providing further details.
Syria has asked for IMF support to rebuild its central bank and other institutions, and an IMF team had already been in the region.
"So when there is peace, there is also this benefit that those who are there to support you, it is easier, more viable for this support to come," she said.
Lebanon's economy minister told Reuters this week that his country is daily contact with the IMF.
The country is struggling to emerge from a severe economic crisis following decades of profligate spending by ruling elites that sent the economy into a tailspin in late 2019, with depositors locked out of accounts as debt-laden banks shut down.
Meanwhile, the IMF chief also said that booming investment in artificial intelligence, concentrated mostly in the US, could contribute between 0.1% and 0.8% to global growth, but could also cause more divergence between rich and poor countries.
"If we were to extract that kind of boost of growth that would be very significant for the world," Kristalina Georgieva said during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.
"The risk is that we may end up in a world where there is increasing productivity, but it is also a source of divergence within countries and across countries," she said.
