IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva heaped praise on India during an address on Tuesday — hailing its ‘bold’ reforms in numerous areas. She cited several policies, including the rollout of a massive digital payment ecosystem, implementation of Aadhaar, and the recent restructuring of GST slabs, to underscore her point. Georgieva also dubbed India a ‘key growth engine’ while flagging the steady deceleration of neighbouring China. The IMF has projected 7% growth for the country during the present calendar year and 6.1% growth in 2026.
“Global growth is forecast at roughly 3% over the medium term – down from 3.7% pre-pandemic. Global growth patterns have been changing over the years, notably with China decelerating steadily while India develops into a key growth engine,” she said.
‘Very big on India because…’
Georgieva hailed several policies introduced by the Indian government in recent years while addressing annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington DC on Monday. She commended the significant economic and structural reforms in the country — laying special emphasis on tax legislation, the massive UPI digital payments system and the recent simplification of the Goods and Services Tax.
“I’m very big on India because of the boldness of their reforms. For example everyone told India that digital identity on a mass scale could not be done…but India proved them wrong,” reports quoted her as saying.
‘IMF will keep pushing G20 to prioritize debt issues’
Georgieva on Monday said the IMF will continue to push the Group of 20 major economies to focus on persistent debt issues burdening developing economies.
Georgieva, speaking at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, said the impact of U.S. tariffs had been less dramatic than expected, but uncertainty remained high.
“Growth is slow, debt is high and the risks of financial downturn are quite permanent. They are there,” she said, adding that countries needed to be “much, much, much more focused on bringing debt levels down.”
Global public debt is expected to exceed 100% of GDP by 2029, Georgieva said last week.
Georgieva said the IMF was working intensively with the World Bank on helping countries that might not have unsustainable debt levels but faced severe liquidity problems, and would also try to keep debt issues on the radar at the G20.
(With inputs from agencies)
