According to Minister of Finance G. Skaistė, Lithuania has been consistently deepening its involvement in the Fund’s activities in recent years, and further adheres this direction. As the Minister noted, Lithuania welcomes the role of the IMF in the face of the pandemic in helping the affected countries and supports the Fund’s efforts to promote inclusive and sustainable recovery of the countries by helping them to increase resilience to future shocks.
“By strengthening Lithuania’s involvement in the Fund’s activities, we enhance audibility of the voice of our country in this very important international financial institution. We support the IMF’s activities in helping the countries to withstand the pandemic shock and in strengthening the resilience of economies to future shocks. Over the next couple of years Lithuania intends to contribute EUR 2 million to one of the IMF’s instruments designated for the poorest countries — the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust. By taking this step, we contribute to the international community’s efforts to ensure a smooth and sustainable recovery of the global economy," noted Minister of Finance G. Skaistė.
According to the Minister, the cooperation between the IMF and the World Bank to support vulnerable countries is essential, particularly at this moment. Indeed, as Ms G. Skaistė points out, when this period of uncertainty caused by the global coronavirus pandemic comes to an end, the IMF and the World Bank should return to conventional instruments within their mandate. In the case of the IMF, to return to conditional policy-based programmes and other lending instruments that would help the countries to implement the necessary reforms and thus increase resilience to future shocks.
The Fund’s activities in the digital finance and Fintech sector were also discussed during the meeting. Minister of Finance G. Skaistė presented the achievements, dynamics and directions of further development of the Fintech sector in Lithuania, including the risk management.
“Since Fintech is altering the face of the financial sector, we see that the IMF is also giving increased attention to this field. The role of the Fund in this regard is important in contributing to the purification of international good practices and standards, and Lithuania has relevant experience in this regard,” said Minister G. Skaistė.
Mr Bo Li holds the position of Deputy Managing Director at the IMF since 23 August this year, succeeding Mr. Tao Zhang previously in this position. A new Deputy Managing Director of the IMF is responsible for the IMF’s work on smaller countries, including Lithuania, as well as for various policy issues such as Fintech, anti-money laundering, gender equality. Today’s meeting of Minister Skaistė with Mr B. Li is part of the session of annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank (PB) which were held last week.
