Vaccines will be the ‘most important’ economic policy this year, IMF chief says

LONDON — Vaccine policy will trump all other economic polices this year as the world tries to recover from the coronavirus crisis, Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund said at CNBC’s Global Evolve Summit on Wednesday.

“Vaccine policy this year, probably next year, is going to be the most important economic policy, may beat even monetary and fiscal policy in terms of significance,” Georgieva told CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore.

“A pre-requisite to bring the world to a sustained high level of growth everywhere is to vaccinate all people and that’s not yet done. We have [a] two track vaccination path right now; we have to overcome that,” she said.

The Fund had said in April that the end of the crisis was “increasingly visible.” At the time, the institution raised its economic projections for the global economy based on higher vaccination rates and the ongoing monetary and fiscal stimulus.

As a result, the IMF projected a global GDP growth of 6% for this year, and of 4.4% next year. But the forecasts are heavily dependent on how vaccination programs evolve, including in low-income nations.