AFP, Washington :
The International Monetary Fund strengthened its call for concerted action to forestall a global economic slide on Tuesday, warning of the increasing risks of policy inertia.
IMF Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said that there is an increasingly “dangerous” view that policymakers worldwide have exhausted their options for boosting growth or have simply lost their will.
To counter that, he said, leaders must expand efforts, including fiscal and monetary stimulus and urgently needed structural reforms, to support growth.
Fiscal policy-government spending and tax breaks-“has to take a more prominent place in the policy mix,” Lipton told a conference of the National Association for Business Economics.
“The burden to lift growth falls more squarely on advanced economies” which have fiscal room to move, he said.
“The downside risks are clearly much more pronounced than before, and the case for more forceful and concerted policy action, has become more compelling,” according to his prepared remarks.
He said the Fund’s most recent projections for growth “may no longer be applicable” amid a pullout of capital from emerging economies and a sharp contraction in global trade.
