by Ben Wright
Telegraph.co.uk
The International Monetary Fund doesn’t get angry, it doesn’t like to apportion blame and it doesn’t issue threats – that’s not its nature. But at its spring meeting in Washington this week, it came surprisingly close to doing all three.
Behind the bland communiqués, the choreographed press conferences and the studied diplomacy was a palpable sense of frustration. The IMF is worried that global economic growth is slowing dangerously close to stalling speed, it has a pretty good idea who is to blame and it really wants them to act before it’s too late.
The traditional team photo of central bankers and finance ministers from the G20 group of rich nations, gathered in the atrium of the IMF’s headquarters after their meeting on Friday, could easily have been titled “heroes and villains”.