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IMF/World Bank annual meetings kick off

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-06 17:33

International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (L), Mexico's Finance Minister and Chairman Agustin Carstens (C) and World Bank President Robert Zoellick (R) hold a joint news conference after their Development Committee meeting at the Istanbul Congress Center October 5, 2009. [Agencies]

ISTANBUL: The 2009 annual meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) opened here Tuesday.

"The global financial crisis has given us some lessons as well as experience. We have realized the problems that have never occurred to us before," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Addressing the opening ceremony, he said, "Policy makers in the world should ponder the root cause of the current crisis and take some actions."

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Among the issues to be discussed during the meetings are IMF and World Bank's global economic importance, global economic crisis, ways to overcome the crisis, restructuring of the global financial system and measures to be taken to overcome stagnation.

Before the annual meetings, the IMF raised its 2010 growth forecast for the world economy to 3.1 percent from 2.5 percent, saying the global recession "is ending."