Transcript of a Press Briefing with Gerry Rice, Director of the IMF Communications Department and IMF Spokesman
March 9, 2017
MR RICE: Good morning everyone and welcome to this press briefing at the International Monetary Fund. I'm Gerry Rice of the Communication Department and, as usual, this morning this briefing will be embargoed until 10:30 a.m.; that's Washington D.C. time.
Let me begin with a few announcements and I'll come to your questions in the room and take a few questions on line.
Upcoming events -- On March 14, that's next Tuesday, we will be releasing our G20 Surveillance Note. This will be accompanied by a blog by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director; and this Surveillance Note will set the stage for the IMF's views going into the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting which is going to be in Baden-Baden, Germany, later that week. So, those of you who follow the Fund, you know that this is a regular occurrence and the G20 Note is something to look out for. That's next Tuesday.
On that same day, Christine Lagarde will be in New York City and she will be participating as a member of the UN's high-level panel on women's economic empowerment. So, that's the same day next Tuesday.
A couple of days later then, March 16, Christine Lagarde will be participating in an event with the IIF, that's the Institute of International Finance, and she'll be in a discussion with Tim Adams who is the president of the IIF, during their conference, which is being held in Frankfurt, Germany, related to the G20 meeting, and under the title of that discussion, the G20 agenda under the German presidency -- so, busy days.
On March 17 and 18, Christine Lagarde and David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director, will be participating in the G20 meeting that I mentioned in Baden-Baden. So, that's the Managing Director's schedule and activity next week.
Let me tell you that also next week on Monday, Maury Obstfeld, our Economic Counselor, will be releasing a paper on labor and product market reforms in advanced economies; fiscal costs, gains and support. Maury will be presenting that paper at a conference in Berlin at the German Institute for Economic Research; and we will be getting all this stuff to you in the usual way -- to media friends -- under embargo and in advance.
Finally, let me mention that on March 18 and 20, there will be the China Development Forum in Beijing, and our Deputy Managing Director, Tao Zhang will attend the CDF in Beijing and represent the Fund. I mentioned the Managing Director's blog a bit earlier -- and IMF's been quite active on the blog front recently -- so, I'd like to, by way of conclusion on this part, draw your attention to a blog that we will be publishing today, titled Public Spending on Healthcare Under IMF-supported Programs. You may have seen some commentary on this issue in recent days, recent weeks, so we thought it useful to set down some factual analysis in this blog which is by Sanjay Gupta and Baoping Shang. So you can, perhaps, look out for that today.
Thanks very much.
Since we have some new guests with us, let me turn to you and give you the first opportunity today -- welcome.
SPEAKER: Thank you, Gerry. Good morning. I have two questions. First, China's premier recently said in the Country Work Report that GDP gross target over 2017 at around 6.5 percent, a little lower than the tax range of 6.5 to 7 percent last year. It seems to me that Chinese policy makers would like to tolerate a little slower growth rate to manage financial risks. I'm wondering could you update the Fund's view of China's efforts to balance stabilizing economic growth and also concerning financial rates.
And the second, U.S. President Trump's trade advisor Navarro recently said in a speech that trade at that stage became a threat to economic growth and the national security. As many economies have strongly rejected his analyst, I'm wondering -- I'm quite confused -- how the Fund looks at the trade to tax issue. Thank you.
MR. RICE: Thank you very much. On China, and your question about the growth target, we believe China's current strong economic momentum is likely to make 6.5 percent growth for 2017 achievable. Having said that, we continue to advise less focus on high GDP growth targets, per se, and more focused on tackling excessive credit growth, hardening budget constraints on state-owned enterprises, and boosting the social security system. More broadly, the work report highlights China's efforts to maintain stability while guiding the economy toward a more inclusive, environmentally-friendly, and sustainable growth path; and determined implementation of the envisaged reforms will help achieve this path. We also welcome China's stated strong commitment to multilateralism and international trade.
