Asian Financial Forum: Bankers call for greater international cooperation on climate change, fintech amid soft landing
- Bankers attending the Asian Financial Forum urge authorities to work together in areas like climate change, fintech, digital assets and cryptocurrency
- Persistent inflation, geopolitical tensions and China’s property downturn continue to pose risks to the global economy, they say
Central and multilateral development bankers at the Asian Financial Forum (AFF) have urged greater international cooperation amid growing expectations of a soft economic landing, but struck a cautionary note about risks posed to the global economy by sticky inflation, geopolitical tensions and China’s property downturn.
“There has been considerable progress on disinflation,” said Thomas Helbling, deputy director of the Asia and Pacific department at the International Monetary Fund. “So you have almost this sort of soft landing achieved in the global economy. Going into 2024, we are on much firmer ground.” He said the IMF is poised to release an update on its economic forecast next week.
The IMF has forecast that the global economy would slow down to 3.0 per cent in 2023 and 2.9 per cent in 2024 from 3.5 per cent in 2022, well below the average of 3.8 per cent in the past two decades.
Bets on monetary easing in the US have been building up recently amid signs of cooling inflation, which has facilitated outflows to cheaper assets globally. However, Helbling warned that “core inflation can be sticky”.
He added that economic growth may be uneven across markets, and the property sector downturn in China could be stronger than expected. “We now also see upside risks if there is a comprehensive strategy to address property sector issues, and broader market-based reforms could lift growth. On the other hand, there are also prospects that the property sales downturn could still intensify before the situation in the sector finally improves.”