Strengthening the roles of existing multilateral development banks (MDBs) and organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the United Nations will help the world better tackle global challenges, panelists urge on Tuesday during a panel disscussion at the IMF Annual Meetings co-organised by the International Finance Forum (IFF).

As part of the IMF Annual Meetings in Marrakesh, Morocco, distinguished panelists who lead or were former leaders at MDBs including the IMF and the World Bank called for strengthening international cooperation in order to solve global challenges including climate crisis, global inequality and poverty.

Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva, who opened the panel discussion, said the world need to come together to solve global challenges, “otherwise we are in trouble”.

She emphasized the need to bring the Global North and Global South together in a fast aging world where Africa will be the only continent that will have demographic dividend in the near future.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with the bipartisan delegation of the U.S. Senate led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday.

Xi said the common interests of the two countries far outweigh their differences, and the respective success of China and the United States is an opportunity. He called for China-U.S. cooperation to meet global challenges including climate crisis and other international and regional issues.

Schumer said Washington did not seek to decouple from China but wanted reciprocal and fair treatment for U.S. companies.

The six-senator-delegation was co-led by Republican Mike Crapo.
 

Sales of China’s lottery tickets jumped 53.6% in August from a year earlier, Xinhua reported citing data from the Ministry of Finance.

Ticket sales reached 52.96 billion yuan in August.

A total of 375.76 billion yuan of lottery tickets were sold from January to August nationwide, up 51.6% from a year earlier.
 

China’s Supreme People’s Court on Tuesday issued guidelines to improve the legal environment for private business, according to the official Xinhua agency.

The guidelines emphasized the legal protection of private firms and entrepreneurs.

To better protect enterprises, the guidelines will crack down on violations of the rights of private enterprises and entrepreneurs including vilification and defamation.
 

China’s inbound and outbound tourists rebounded during the eight-day Mid-Autumn/National Day holiday, reaching 85% of the pre-pandemic level, data from the National Immigration Administration showed.

The number of inbound and outbound passenger trips a day reached 1.477 million on average during the holiday, the administration said, making up for 85.1% of the number of average trips made in the same period in 2019.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday kept its global GDP growth unchanged at 3% in its latest World Economic Outlook.

The IMF meanwhile cut its growth forecasts for China and the euro zone. It also raises its U.S. growth forecast by 0.3% to 2.1%.

IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said the global economy continued to recover but diverging growth trends meant mediocre medium-term outlook.
 

U.S. Federal Reserve officials agreed to keep rates elevated until policymakers are convinced inflation is heading back to 2%, according to their September meeting’s minutes.

Fed officials however have conflicting opinions on whether any additional interest increases would be needed.

“A majority of participants judged that one more increase in the target federal funds rate at a future meeting would likely be appropriate, while some judged it likely that no further increases would be warranted,” read the summary of the Sept. 19-20 policy meeting.
 

Sri Lanka said on Thursday it has reached an agreement with China’s Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM) covering $4.2 billion of its outstanding debts, Reuters reported.

The deal will enable Sri Lanka to pass the first review of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and secure a second IMF payment of about $334 million, according to a statement from its finance ministry.

U.S. consumer prices moderated in September with consumer prices index increased 3.7% in September from a year earlier, the same increase as that of August, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed.

Inflation eased from 0.6% to 0.4% last month on a monthly basis, thanks to lower energy prices.

Core inflation which excludes volatile energy and food prices, remained steady at 0.3% month on month.
 

Global economic losses could reach $5 trillion in extreme weather events linked to climate crisis, Reuters reported citing research note from insurance marketplace Lloyd’s.

The research, carried out by Lloyd’s and the Cambridge Center for Risk Studies, estimated the impact of food and water shocks on global gross domestic product over a five-year period.

The weighted average loss across the three severities it modeled was $5 trillion over the five years with lowest severity scenario at $3 trillion to $17.6 trillion in the most extreme.