The economic cost from the outbreak of coronavirus
Rice expressed sympathy and condolences for victims of the virus and the IMF has urged coordinated global action.
“First and foremost, this is a health issue. We've been saying we've been asking for governments to be forward leaning. That means to take this issue very seriously, to be active, to take well-targeted and proportionate measures again, to strengthen public health systems. First and foremost, and to contain the impact on the economy. So it's targeted financing to support health care systems to immediately help the people that are affected and secondary. Secondly, monetary and fiscal support to help the economy where it's needed most.”
The IMF has made up to $50 billion available to its members to help contain the economic impact of the virus. Part of that is the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, a fund created to help low-income countries deal with disasters.
Rice warned that the CCRT was running low on funds and welcomed a pledge by Great Britain on Wednesday to help replenish it and urged other countries to follow suit.
“We have the containment and the protests or catastrophe containment and relief trust, which is another instrument the IMF has for very poor countries to help them with debt relief. These are essentially granting for debt relief. And we have called upon our membership.”
The IMF has created a landing page for all the latest updates on COVID-19: https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/imf-and-covid19
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