Transition in emerging markets is once more dominating the agenda of International Financial Institutions, the private sector and civil society, Erik Berglof, the EBRD’s Chief Economist, has said.
Speaking in Washington DC on the eve of the World Bank and IMF 2013 Annual Meetings, Mr Berglof highlighted the need for new momentum on reforms.
“The focus is very much on what’s happening in the emerging markets, in the slowdown, in the large emerging markets, what impact that is having on other emerging markets, on the global economy as a whole,” he said
“And the key word is ‘transition’. Transition is coming back in every discussion here. It was very prominent in the speech that Christine Lagarde (the IMF’s Managing Director) gave yesterday. It is about getting structural reforms going, getting new momentum to reforms.
“It’s a very similar message to the one we are bringing in this year’s Transition Report, under the title ‘Stuck in Transition’.
“So most of our countries have for 10, 15 years, sometimes longer been stuck in transition, stuck in terms of moving the reform agenda forward.”
The EBRD fosters transition to market economies in more than 30 countries from central and eastern Europe to central Asia and the southern and eastern Mediterranean.
