İbrahim Çanakcı - IMF Executive Director / Speech at The Center for International Governance Innovation

I will start with a brief overview of the current global conjuncture and risks, followed by the key medium- to long term challenges facing the global economy. I will then talk about how Turkey as the current chair of the G20, has responded to those challenges and incorporated them into the G20 agenda as well as how much progress has been achieved in those areas. I will conclude with some brief remarks on the current state of and the medium-term challenges for the Turkish economy.

Regarding the global conjuncture, outlook and risks, I would like to highlight 4 points very briefly.

First, despite 8 years have passed since the onset of the global financial crisis and despite the immense efforts by all countries, global growth continues to be moderate and brittle. It seems that global growth has leveled out at the 3.0-3.5 percent range over the past five years.

Second, there has been a visible change in the growth performance of major country groupings in recent years. Growth in advanced economies has been accelerating from about 1.5 percent to about 2.5 percent, while the growth rate in emerging economies has been decelerating from around 6 percent to the 4.5 - 5 percent range in the last five years.

Third, global growth is expected to accelerate only gradually to around 4 percent in the next five years. Using the words of the IMF’s Managing Director, prospects of a “new mediocre” linger.

Fourth, risks to the global outlook are tilted towards the downside. In the short term, U.S. monetary policy normalization, strong appreciation of US dollar, Chinese growth transition, commodity prices and geopolitical developments deserve close attention.