World

Colombo, Jun 13 (PTI) Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thursday recalled the assistance received from India and Bangladesh during the early days of the worst economic crisis and said the island nation would not have been able to recover from the turmoil had these countries not helped. Expressing gratitude to the government and Reserve Bank of India, as well as the government and Central Bank of Bangladesh, for their financial support, which he described as lifesaving, the president in his keynote address at the inaugural session of the 45th “SAARCFINANCE” Governors' Meeting and Symposium here said the assistance, along with aid from the United States Agency For International Development (USAID) and the World Bank, was pivotal in stabilising the country's economy. “I must...

The Indian economy is in a goldilocks phase with strong growth and manageable macro stability risks, said UBS Securities on Monday, adding that the economy is likely to grow by 7% this fiscal year. In a webinar on Post-Election Indian Economy: Mapping India’s Growth Path, Tanvee Gupta Jain, Chief India Economist at UBS, said India is likely to maintain a potential growth of 6.5-7% year on year between FY26-30. India’s potential growth could benefit from digitalisation adoption, increased services exports and manufacturing push and implementation of hard reforms will take the potential growth rate even higher than 7%. “While political stability should help ensure continuity in policy agenda, we see risk of populist bias in the third term (targeted towards lower- income strata) and...

Asia-Pacific: The region's approach to making a green economy a priority In the vast expanse of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, the pressing need to tackle the dual challenges of environmental sustainability and economic growth has reached a critical juncture. The headwinds of climate change, coupled with unequal technological advancements, are intensifying the challenges to the region’s sustainable growth. Estimates suggest that as much as 63% ($19 trillion) of the region’s GDP is at risk due to nature loss caused by human activity and climate change. Amid these challenges, Asia and the Pacific remains the fastest growing region in the world. Sustaining this trajectory depends on investments by governments and businesses, on the digital economy and policies enabling innov...

One of my favourite exam questions is: "Given our extensive knowledge about the causes of financial crises and the measures needed to prevent them, why do they happen so frequently?" We have had a deep understanding of financial crises for over 200 years. A 19th-century central banker dealing with the severe crisis of 1866 would find few surprises in the more recent ones. All crises share the same fundamental causes. Excessive leverage renders financial institutions vulnerable to even small shocks. Self-preservation in times of stress drives market participants to prefer the most liquid assets. System opacity, complexity, and asymmetric information make market participants mistrust one another. These three fundamental vulnerabilities have been behind almost every financial crisis in...

Good morning. It is an honor to join you here at the AI for Good Global Summit. We are hearing about some of the extraordinary ways Generative Artificial Intelligence could benefit our societies, including helping us live healthier lives and accelerating scientific breakthroughs. Many experts also believe the technology could provide significant economic benefits, for example by providing a serious boost to productivity. This could help lift the global economy at a time when the growth outlook for the medium term is the weakest in decades. This said, many also agree that AI’s promise comes with considerable uncertainty and significant risks. To date, most warnings have focused on security, privacy, misinformation, and ethical concerns. Taking an economic perspective, I would like...