Котирування нафти еталонного сорту Brent уперше за три тижні опустилися нижче від позначки 80 доларів за барель. Як вказують аналітики, це сталося через поєднання кількох чинників.

Серед них – відчутне падіння на фондовому ринку США, яке фіксувалося впродовж цього тижня і спричинило серед інвесторів побоювання щодо уповільнення темпів зростання світової економіки. Цей чинник впливає і на попит на нафту.

Також уперше за кілька тижнів у США зафіксоване зростання кількості бурових установок. Це свідчить про те, що нафтовики готові за нинішнього рівня цін (а котирування еталонного американського сорту нафти також зросли – більш ніж до 70 доларів за барель) інвестувати в інфраструктуру транспортування, недостатність якої дотепер гальмувала зростання видобутку.

Ціни на нафту еталонного сорту Brent на американській торговельній сесії ввечері 3 жовтня сягнули максимуму на рівні 86,73 долара за барель. Настільки високого котирування не було з 30 жовтня 2014 року.
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World stocks are climbing Friday after two days of sharp losses. Major U.S. stock indexes are up more than 1 percent, but they’re still on track for their biggest one-week loss since late March.

Technology and internet companies were some of the hardest hit over the last two days and they led the market higher Friday. Apple climbed 2.7 percent to $220.18. Consumer-focused companies also rallied, as Amazon jumped 3.8 percent to $1,783.96 and Netflix surged 4.7 percent to $336.30.

The S&P 500 index climbed 37 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,766 at 9:45 a.m. Eastern time. The benchmark index tumbled 5.3 percent over the past two days and as of Thursday it had fallen for six consecutive days. The S&P is down 5.6 percent from its latest record high, set Sept. 20.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 305 points, or 1.2 percent, to 25,358. The Nasdaq composite surged 138 points, or 1.9 percent, to 7,467. The Russell 2000 index gained 17 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,563. That index, which is made up of smaller and more U.S.-focused companies, has fallen into a 10 percent “correction” since reaching a record high at the end of August.

On the New York Stock Exchange, winners outnumbered losers eight to one.

Stocks in Europe and Asia also recovered some of their recent losses. The French CAC 40 and the DAX in Germany both rose 0.8 percent while Britain’s FTSE 100 was 0.7 percent higher. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.5 percent after sinking early in the day and following a nearly 4 percent loss on Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 2.1 percent and the Kospi in South Korea rose 1.5 percent.

The market’s recent losing streak started when strong economic data and positive comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell helped set off a wave of selling in the bond market. Investors were betting that the U.S. economy would keep growing at a healthy pace. The sales pushed bond prices lower and yields higher. That drove interest rates sharply higher, which worried investors who felt that a big increase in interest rates could eventually stifle economic growth. Higher yields also make bonds more appealing to investors versus stocks.

The worst losses went to stocks that have led the market in recent years, including technology companies, as well as companies that do better when economic growth speeds up, like industrial firms.

Banks rose as they began to report their third-quarter results. Citigroup jumped 2.4 percent to $70.04. Last year’s corporate tax cut and rising interest rates have helped banks make more money.

Bond prices turned lower as the stock market stabilized. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.16 percent from 3.13 percent.

High-dividend stocks lagged the rest of the market, and utilities and household goods makers were little changed. Those stocks held up a bit better than the rest of the market over the last six days. Investors view them as relatively safe, steady assets that look better when growth is uncertain and the rest of the market is in turmoil.

U.S. crude oil added 0.6 percent to $71.43 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 0.6 percent to $80.77 a barrel in London.

The dollar rose to 112.17 yen from 111.94 yen. The euro fell to $1.1548 from $1.1594.
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Just in case any of the global central bankers and finance ministers gathered in Indonesia missed the message delivered repeatedly this week, the host nation said it again Friday: Everyone stands to lose if trade wars are allowed to escalate.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo didn’t mention the United States or China, the world’s two largest economies, but it was clear who he was talking about in an address to the plenary session of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings on the island of Bali.

“Lately it feels like the relations among the major economies are becoming more and more like Game of Thrones,” Widodo said in a speech peppered with references to the HBO series about dynasties and kingdoms battling for power.

“Are we so busy fighting with each other and competing against each other that we fail to notice the things which are increasingly threatening, all of us alike, rich and poor, large and small,” he said.

Poorer and populous emerging market countries like his are among the most vulnerable to the fallout from the ongoing U.S.-Sino tariff war, and rising U.S. interest rates that are drawing investors away and driving down currencies.

“All these troubles in the world economy, are enough to make us feel like saying: ‘Winter is coming,'” Widodo said, using a phrase that characters in the popular fantasy series constantly repeat to refer to spectral dangers that could destroy them all.

With rivalry growing in the world economy, Widodo said “the situation could be more critical compared to the global financial crisis 10 years ago.”

The market ructions have now cascaded through to developed markets with Wall Street extending a slide into a sixth session on Thursday amid the trade war fears.

The United States and China have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods over the past few months.

The tariffs stem from the Trump administration’s demands that China make sweeping changes to its intellectual property practices, rein in high-technology industrial subsidies, open its markets to more foreign competition and take steps to cut a politically sensitive U.S. goods trade surplus.

Rubbing salt in U.S. wounds, China reported on Friday an unexpected acceleration in export growth in September and a record $34.13 billion trade surplus with the United States.

Mnuchin: China trade talks must include yuan

In an interview with Reuters, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he told China’s central bank chief that currency issues need to be part of any further U.S.-China trade talks and expressed his concerns about the yuan’s recent weakness.

Mnuchin also said that China needs to identify concrete “action items” to rebalance the two countries’ trade relationship before talks to resolve their disputes can resume.

The U.S. Treasury chief and People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang extensively discussed currency issues on the sidelines of the meetings in Bali.

Mnuchin’s comments on China’s currency come ahead of next week’s scheduled release of a hotly anticipated Treasury report on currency manipulation, the first since a significant weakening of yuan began this spring.

Mnuchin said re-launching trade talks would require China to commit to taking action on structural reforms to its economy.

If the relationship could be rebalanced, he said the U.S.-China total annual trade relationship could grow to $1 trillion from $650 billion currently, with $500 billion of exports from each country.

G-20 members and trade issues

Meanwhile, the chairman of a meeting of finance leaders from the Group of 20 leading industrialized and emerging economies admitted that the trade tensions within the group could only be solved by the countries directly involved.

“The G-20 can play a role in providing the platform for discussions. But the differences that still persist should be resolved by the members that are directly involved in the tensions,” Nicolas Dujovne, Argentina’s Treasury Minister, told a news conference after chairing the G-20 meeting in Bali.

More than 19,000 delegates and other guests, including ministers, central bank heads and some leaders, were attending the IMF-World Bank meetings, and Widodo asked them to “cushion the blows from trade wars, technical disruption and market turmoil.”

“I hope you will each do your part to nudge our various leaders in the right direction,” Widodo said, adding that “confrontation and collision impose a tragic price.”

The IMF’s twice-yearly report on the Asia Pacific region, released Thursday, warned that the market rout seen in emerging economies could worsen if the Federal Reserve and other major central banks tightened monetary policy more quickly than expected.

At Friday’s plenary, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde estimated that the escalation of current trade tensions could reduce global GDP by almost one percent over the next two years.

IMF forecasts of global economic growth for both 2018 and 2019 were cut to 3.7 percent, from 3.9 percent in its July forecast.

“Clearly, we need to de-escalate these disputes,” Lagarde told the plenary session.
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Національний банк України за підсумками торгів на міжбанківському валютному ринку 12 жовтня встановив на перший робочий день наступного тижня, 16 жовтня, курс 27 гривень 92,81 копійки за долар.

Це майже на шість копійок менше, ніж передбачав офіційний курс на 12 жовтня.

Новий курс є найвищим для національної валюти від літа. Наприкінці серпня долар посилився до рівня понад 28 гривень за одиницю, пікове значення майже 28 гривень 50 копійок було зафіксоване 5 вересня 2018 року.

З того часу і до цього тижня американська валюта стабільно оцінювалася вище рівня 28 гривень.

Фахівці вважають причиною посилення гривні додаткові обсяги валюти, які на ринок поставили українські експортери, а також те, що НБУ не викуповує у свої резерви весь надлишок валюти з ринку. За повідомленнями учасників ринку, регулятор 12 жовтня придбав близько 20 мільйонів доларів.
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Elon Musk replied with a tweet saying “This is incorrect” after the Financial

Times reported that outgoing Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. Chief Executive James Murdoch was the lead candidate to replace him as Tesla Inc. chairman.

Tesla has until Nov. 13 to appoint an independent chairman of the board, part of settlements reached last month between Tesla, Musk and U.S. regulators after Musk tweeted in August that he had secured funding to take the electric car maker private.

The SEC settlement capped months of debate and some investor calls for stronger oversight of Musk, whose recent erratic public behavior raised concerns about his ability to steer the money-losing company through a rocky phase of growth.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which said Musk’s tweeted statements about going private were fraudulent, allowed the billionaire to retain his role as CEO while requiring he give up his chairmanship.

Musk had said he was considering taking Tesla private at a price of $420 a share, a number that is slang for marijuana. He tweeted the three-word denial of the Financial Times story on Wednesday at 4:20 pm PDT (2320 GMT), about six hours after the newspaper’s post.

In a vote of confidence for Musk, shareholder T. Rowe Price Group Inc. said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it had raised its stake to 10.2 percent at the end of September from just under 7 percent in June.

The Financial Times cited two people briefed on discussions saying Murdoch was the lead candidate for the job. Murdoch, already an independent director of Tesla, has signaled he wants the job, the report said.

The son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, he joined Tesla’s board last year after years of work with media companies. He has no experience in manufacturing and has never led a company that makes cars or electric vehicles.

Murdoch could not immediately be reached for comment. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Twenty-First Century Fox declined to comment.

​Board roles

Musk is the public face of Tesla, and any chairman would have to contend with his powerful personality. Thanks to his vision and audacious showmanship, Tesla’s valuation has at times eclipsed that of established U.S. automakers with billions in revenues, and the company has garnered legions of fans, despite repeated production issues.

“The question when it comes to James Murdoch is, ‘Is he the guy who’ll be able to establish that level of authority with Elon Musk?’ ” asked Abby Adlerman, CEO of Boardspan, a corporate governance consulting company.

Murdoch, who at 45 is a near contemporary of 47-year-old Musk, recently navigated a takeover battle between Fox and Comcast Corp. to buy European pay-TV company Sky, which he also chaired.

His record in ensuring Sky’s independent shareholders were represented throughout was exemplary, media analyst Alice Enders said.

“His experience is very recent and very relevant,” she said.

Investor concerns that Tesla’s board was too closely tied to Musk led to the company’s addition of two independent directors, including Murdoch, in July 2017.

Earlier this year, leading U.S. proxy advisers Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services and union-affiliated investment adviser CtW Investment Group had recommended investors cast votes “against” the re-election of Murdoch as a Tesla director at the company’s annual meeting held on June 5.

While CtW cited a lack of relevant experience and a “troubled history as an executive and director,” both proxy firms warned that Murdoch already served on too many boards.

Murdoch currently serves on the boards of Twenty-First Century Fox and News Corp. He stepped down from Sky Plc on Tuesday following the completion of Comcast’s takeover of the broadcaster.

He was appointed chief executive of Sky, founded by his father, in 2003, becoming the youngest CEO of a FTSE 100 company.

“Under his leadership, Sky went down the technology route,” Enders said. “It’s no accident he oversaw that strategy, which was really distinct from the strategy other pay-TV companies followed, and in my view was his most valuable contribution.”

Murdoch replaced his father as chairman of Sky in 2007, but was forced out in 2012 after being embroiled in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal. He returned to Sky’s board in 2016 after rebuilding his career at Fox.
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Parties to a new global treaty to combat the illicit sale of tobacco products have taken the first steps toward cracking down on this multi-billion dollar trade.  At a three-day meeting at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva they have outlined a plan to shut down the lucrative black market trade in tobacco.

A global tobacco treaty (Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products) entered into force on September 25, with 48 countries joining the new protocol, which is part of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC).  Two-thirds of the parties have enacted or strengthened national legislation aimed at tackling illicit trade in tobacco products.

Parties attending the meeting have set up a working group to create a monitoring system to track and trace the movement of tobacco products. They hope this global information sharing system will be up and running by 2023.  

Head of the FCTC Secretariat, Vera da Costa e Silva, says illicit trade accounts for one in 10 cigarettes consumed.  She says these cigarettes are low-priced and more affordable for young people and vulnerable populations.  She says this results in increased consumption of the toxic product by these groups.

She told VOA the black market in tobacco thrives in both rich and poor countries, but it is a much bigger problem in developing countries.

“In the streets of developing countries, you can see all over the world sales of illicit trade of tobacco products.  They are openly in their markets…. When it comes to the distribution, this is linked to street sales, to bootlegging as well through borders and even to sales to and by minors.  That is a real problem of illicit trade in tobacco products,” she said.

Da Costa e Silva said this flourishing illegal trade undermines tobacco control policies and public health.  She said it also fuels organized crime and increases tobacco profits through tax evasion, resulting in substantial losses in governments’ revenues.   

She said studies show governments lose $31 billion in taxes annually from the illegal trafficking in tobacco products.  

The World Health Organization reports seven million people die prematurely every year from tobacco-related causes.

 
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One of Donald Trump’s top economic advisers says the president is not trying to improperly influence the U.S. central bank.

The director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, spoke to the television network CNBC a day after Trump said the U.S. Federal Reserve is “loco” (crazy) for raising interest rates. On Thursday, Trump continued his attacks on the central bank, calling the Fed “out of control,” but denied he has plans to fire Fed Chair Jay Powell. 

Kudlow said, “We all know the Fed is independent. The president is not dictating policy to the Fed.”  

The Federal Reserve slashed the benchmark interest rate nearly to zero in an emergency, temporary effort to boost economic growth hurt by a severe recession 10 years ago. Since then, the economy has stopped shrinking and resumed growth, unemployment has fallen to historic lows, and wages and inflation have begun to rise modestly.  

Low interest rates boost growth by making it cheaper for businesses and families to borrow money to build factories or buy homes.  Economists warn that keeping interest rates too low for too long could spark strong inflation that pushes up prices and wages so sharply that they damage the economy.  

To fend off inflation, the Fed has been slowly raising rates a quarter of a percentage point at a time. They are expected to continue this effort to gradually return rates to their historic averages.

A common conflict grows out of the fact that incumbent elected politicians get the blame if the economy is not growing strongly. That gives presidents and others a political incentive to keep interest rates low, regardless of the consequences.  

That is why central banks in the United States and elsewhere are often set up to be insulated from political pressure — so they can make decisions based on economic merit rather than potential popularity.

When the independence of a central bank is seriously questioned, markets and currencies can fall, because investors lose confidence in the economic management of a nation.

U.S. stock markets fell sharply again Wednesday with the benchmark Dow Jones industrial average off nearly 550 points, a drop of more than 2 percent.

This was the second sharp loss for U.S. stocks in as many days, with a total loss for the Dow at more than 1,300 points. Many key European and Asian stock indexes also declined. 
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More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, according to United Nations figures.  By the middle of this century, 68 percent of the world will be urbanized, adding 2½ billion people to global cities.  The growth will bring problems, including lack of housing, and,  as Mike O’Sullivan reports, some ballooning urban regions already face a housing crisis.
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The trade war between the United States and China has made for a nerve-wracking summer of uncertainty in Wisconsin, where manufacturing has long been in decline yet remains a vital part of the state’s economy.

At Johnson Level and Tool in suburban Milwaukee, the Trump administration’s thrust-and-parry trade moves with China and other countries have left the company bracing for up to $3.7 million in extra costs annually because of higher tariffs on imports, including some of its levels that are made in China.

The company has a range of options to try to blunt its higher costs — from raising prices on the levels it sells to big box stores to potentially moving some of its manufacturing now done in China to another country to avoid tariffs.

But as companies across America struggle to adapt to the higher prices from import taxes, the options that officials at Johnson Level and Tool face underscore there are no easy answers — and no surefire way to avoid paying more for indispensable imports. As Trump’s tariffs on countless U.S. imports take root, some of the largest U.S. corporations have warned that higher prices are coming.   

For many such companies, a key internal question is whether to absorb the higher costs themselves, at least temporarily, to avoid losing customers — or raise prices immediately. Johnson Level has chosen to raise its prices for the stores that buy its products by 8 percent to 10 percent to match its higher costs imposed by the tariffs.

Levels are a basic tool essential for things like getting doorways square and hanging pictures straight. Though Johnson manufactures some of its levels in Mequon, it imports others that are cheaper to make in China because their tooling machines cost just one-tenth what they do in the U.S., said Paul Buzzell, the company’s chief financial officer. About half of the levels the company sells are imported from China.

The uncertainty over how long the tariffs will remain in place has made it harder to find a solution, Buzzell said. He said he always assumed that if the U.S. increased tariffs, it would give businesses a year or two to prepare by making adjustments with their suppliers.

That was the assumption, he said, when the company “started investing in our suppliers and relationships in China.”

“We have this uncertainty, and almost overnight our business really has changed and so the competitive landscape is different,” Buzzell said.

The first tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum in June didn’t affect Johnson Level; the company doesn’t import those raw materials. But in July, a second round of tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports covering hundreds of items, including all the levels and laser levels the company imports, meaning they were now paying 25 percent more for those.

Despite its decline over the years, manufacturing still plays a central role in Wisconsin’s economy, making the survival of companies like Johnson Level essential to the state.

About 16 percent of Wisconsin’s workforce is in manufacturing — second only to Indiana, according to the National Association of Manufacturers . And global trade — whether involving manufacturing, farming or other industries — supports about 800,000 jobs in the state, according to the advocacy group U.S. Chamber of Commerce . That’s roughly a quarter of the state’s total workforce.

In business since 1947, Johnson Level and Tool sells levels and measuring tools to stores nationwide, including Home Depot, Menards, Lowe’s and Ace Hardware.  

Buzzell said some of his customers, whom he declined to name, have already balked at suggested price increases. One business customer that he said accounted for about $2 million in Johnson’s annual sales found another supplier shortly after Johnson raised its prices, Buzzell said.

Margaret Smith, a spokeswoman for Home Depot, said the company works “with suppliers to mitigate impact on customers.” She said she couldn’t elaborate.

Buzzell said the company, which employs about 100 people, has no plans to reduce staff. He wouldn’t disclose Johnson Level’s annual revenue, saying only that it’s under $50 million. Buzzell said one option likeliest to succeed — but also the costliest — would be for the company to find another country not subject to tariffs that can manufacture what it needs. Johnson Level has discussed that possibility, including making in the U.S. what it now imports from China, but it would entail a complex and time-consuming process.

‘Uncertainty’ reigns

“This is a classic example of uncertainty,” Buzzell said. “We’re questioning, should we treat these tariffs as a long-term thing that’s never going away.”

On the other hand, he said, the company must make pivotal decisions even knowing that the Trump administration could rescind its tariff increases at any time.

“You don’t really know what to do,” Buzzell said.

The uncertainty over how long the tariffs will stay is making decisions difficult for other companies that import products from China as well.

“The big question is, nobody knows how long they’ll be in place, so it’s hard making changes,” Austin Ramirez, the CEO of Husco International, said in an interview.

The Wisconsin-based Husco makes hydraulic and electro-mechanical components for cars and uses machines and metal from China.

“This is costing us a fortune,” Ramirez told U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson at a meeting with business leaders in July. Ramirez said the company was incurring about a million dollars a month more in expenses because of the Trump tariffs. Husco International makes roughly a half-billion in total revenue, Ramirez said.   

Husco International does about half its business overseas, with plants in Asia and Europe. The company also has about 100 manufacturing jobs in the U.S. for exports to other countries, but retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports means those jobs could move elsewhere, Ramirez said.

“Those jobs are at risk because I can move them to overseas plants that aren’t subject to these tariffs,” Ramirez told Johnson.

At Regal Ware, a company that makes pots, frying pans and cast aluminum cookware, $2 million in profits could vanish if tariffs remain in place this year, said Doug Reigl, a vice president at the Wisconsin-based company.

Reigl said the company will consider moving production overseas “or look for ways to take costs out of operations here in the U.S.” if the tariffs stay.  

While layoffs may not be imminent at manufacturing companies, hiring could face a slowdown, said Dr. Joseph Daniels, chairman of the economics department at Marquette University.

“I would say what’s at risk is actually job creation,” Daniels said.

That’s a concern Buzzell shares.

“It’s not going to shut us down,” he said of the tariffs. “But what it does, it theoretically takes away money to invest in long-term projects.”

 
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The heads of the World Bank and IMF appealed Thursday to the U.S. and China to cool their dispute over technology policy and play by world trade rules, as tumbling share prices drove home potential perils from a clash between the world’s two biggest economies.

Global economic growth is slowing but remains strong, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank annual meeting, being held this week on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Countries are mostly in a “strong position,” she said, “which is why we believe we are not seeing what is referred to as ‘contagion.”‘

But the gyrations that rocked Wall Street the day before and Asia and Europe on Thursday, taking the Shanghai Composite index down 5.2 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 nearly 4 percent, do partly reflect rising interest rates in the U.S. and some other countries and growing uncertainty over trade, she said.

“It’s the combination of the two that is probably showing some of the tensions that we see in terms of indices, short-term indicators as well as possibly market volatility,” Lagarde said.

The U.S. and Chinese exchanges of penalty tariffs in their dispute isn’t helping, she said.

Her advice was threefold: “De-escalate. Fix the system. Don’t break it.”

She acknowledged that the World Trade Organization, based in Geneva, has made scant headway in recent years toward a global agreement on trade rules that can address issues like complaints over Chinese policies that U.S. President Donald Trump says unfairly extract advanced technologies and put foreign companies at a disadvantage in a quest to dominate certain industries.

“Our strong recommendation is to escalate work for a world trade system that is stronger, that is fairer and is fit for the purpose,” she said in opening remarks. 

‘More trade not less’

Somewhat obliquely, she said policies aimed toward an excessively “dominant position” were not compatible with free and fair trade.

The IMF has downgraded its forecast for global economic growth to 3.7 percent this year from its earlier estimate of 3.9 percent. It also issued reports this week on government finance and financial stability that warn of the risks of disruptions to world trade.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the World Bank is working with developing countries to brace for a further deterioration.

“Trade is very critical because that is what has lifted people out of extreme poverty,” Kim said. “I am a globalist. That is my job. That is our only chance of ending extreme poverty. We need more trade not less trade,” he said.

Kim said the World Bank has launched a “human capital index” to help rank countries by the level of their investments in such areas as education and health care.

Policies to build such human capital are among the “smartest investments countries can make,” he said.

He praised host country Indonesia, a democratic, Muslim-majority country of 260 million, for fostering strong growth but noted there was much room for improvement. The country is ranked 87th of 150 countries in the list.

Indonesia has endured a slew of disasters in recent months. Before dawn on Thursday, an earthquake collapsed homes on Indonesia’s Java island, killing at least three people just two weeks after a major quake and tsunami disaster in a central region of the archipelago killed more than 2,000 people and left perhaps thousands more buried deeply in mud.

Thursday’s magnitude 6.0 quake offshore north of Bali shook the area where the IMF-World Bank delegates are meeting, but there were no signs of significant damage.

The annual financial meetings take place at a time of growing concern over trends other than trade, such as moves to raise borrowing costs in the U.S. and some other regions to help cool growth and keep inflation in check. Rising interest rates are drawing investment flows out of emerging markets in Asia and Latin America at a time when growth in their exports is likely to slow.

Rising debts

Argentina and Pakistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe are among countries grappling with crises. Concerns are growing, also, over slowing growth in China and rising debts among some developing countries resulting from projects associated with Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to develop ports, roads and other infrastructure. 

Lagarde said the IMF will send a team to Pakistan in the coming weeks after a meeting with its finance minister, Asad Umar, in which he requested emergency bailout loans.

The IMF chief did not say how much Umar had requested. Analysts say Pakistan is seeking $8 billion in loans to deal with a balance of payments crisis. Pakistan’s currency plunged by around 7 percent earlier this week after word of the loan request was made public.

Asked whether IMF help might amount to a “bailout” for Chinese loans, Lagarde said any such help would have to be completely transparent.

“In whatever work we do we need a complete understanding and complete transparency about the nature of a debt that is bearing on a country,” she said.

The annual summit for global finance brings together central bankers and finance ministers, development experts and civil society groups from across the globe.

Bali has suffered terrorist bombings in the past, and the event was being held amid tight security. A convoy of armed personnel carriers was lined up alongside a beach path and access to the area was tightly controlled. 

Still, about a dozen activists concerned with land grabs and other issues sometimes associated with World Bank-sponsored projects staged a brief, peaceful protest over the cancellation by local authorities of a conference they were to hold in the nearby city of Denpasar.

“If they don’t want to ever hear our voices, what kinds of projects are we expecting?” said Joan Salvador, a member of a Philippine women’s group.

Those involved had badges allowing them to enter the tightly guarded venue, and an IMF official said she would convey their concerns “to the highest levels.”
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