(Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund is watching for potential market liquidity risks as countries refinance debt issued during the pandemic, its first Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath told Bloomberg News on Wednesday.
“Debt is at extremely high levels,” she said. “What worries me on top of that is that we have projected fiscal deficits that are going to be higher than they were pre-pandemic.”
“Many countries borrowed a lot during the pandemic. That was short term in nature, and that’s coming due, so I think liquidity risks are something we should pay attention to”, Gopinath said.
The impact of the pandemic, which gummed up the transport of goods, particularly from China, prompting countries to increase domestic production or seek alternative supplies, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that drove up energy and commodity prices, have forced governments to boost their spending and borrow more.
(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Tomasz Janowski)
