BENGALURU, Feb 25 (Portal) – The Group of 20 (G20) nations have some disagreements over debt restructuring for troubled economies, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Saturday, adding that the ban on private cryptocurrencies should be an option.
India’s G20 presidency comes as its South Asian neighbors Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan desperately seek IMF money amid an economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
China, the world’s largest bilateral creditor, on Friday urged the group of major economies to conduct a fair, objective and thorough analysis of the root causes of global debt problems as calls for lenders to take a big haircut or take losses on loans grow.
“While there is still some disagreement on debt restructuring, we now have the global sovereign debt roundtable, taking into account all public and private creditors,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters after opening the roundtable with the Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
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“We have just concluded a session that made it clear that there is an obligation to bridge differences for the good of countries.”
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said there were no “outcomes” from the meeting, which was mainly organizational in nature.
Further discussions by the panel, which includes key bilateral creditors including China, India and the G7 countries, several debtor countries, are planned around the time of the IMF-World Bank spring meeting in April.
“We certainly agreed that this is a useful forum,” Yellen said in an interview with Portal. “We look forward to participating.”
CRYPTO RESTRICTIONS
Along with debt restructuring, cryptocurrency regulation is another area of focus for India that Georgieva agreed with.
“We need to differentiate between central bank digital currencies, which are backed by the state, and stablecoins and crypto assets, which are privately issued,” Georgieva said.
“There has to be a very strong pressure on regulation…if regulation fails, if you’re slow to do it, then we shouldn’t take these assets off the table because they can pose a risk to financial stability.”
Yellen said she did not propose a “total ban on crypto activities, but creating a strong regulatory framework is crucial.”
Reporting by Aftab Ahmed, Sarita Chaganti Singh and Shivangi Acharya; writing by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Krishna N. Das and William Mallard
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