International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Wednesday she was less concerned about the risk that the war in Ukraine and a growing slowdown in China might trigger a global recession than about the strength of the trend toward economic and political fragmentation.
The IMF last month cut its 2022 global growth forecast to 3.6% from 4.4%, its second forecast cut this year, and Georgieva repeated her warning that events since then could trigger further forecast cuts.
But she told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that that's not the biggest thing on her mind right now.
"What worries us most is the danger that we are going to a world of further fragmentation, with trading and currency cartels, dividing what has hitherto been an integrated global economy," Georgieva said. "The trend towards fragmentation is strong," she said.