Global economic resilience was being tested once again by the latest war in the Middle East, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned on Thursday.
“This conflict, if proven to be longer, has obvious potential to affect global energy prices, market confidence, growth and inflation, and place new demands on the shoulders of policymakers around the world,” Georgieva said during a live broadcast of the “Asia in 2050” conference in Bangkok.
The United States and Israel began launching attacks against Iran on Saturday, martyring its supreme leader and sparking a wave of retaliatory attacks across the Gulf.
Conflict in the resource-rich region has sent global oil prices soaring and markets thrown into turmoil.
“We are in a world of more frequent and unexpected shocks and we have been warning our members for quite some time that uncertainty is now the new normal,” Georgieva said on Thursday.
“We are potentially in a prolonged period of change.”
Energy security was “at stake” for most of Asia, he told the conference in Thailand’s capital, noting that markets have fluctuated “like a rollercoaster over the past few days.”
“So the sooner we see the end of the calamity, the better for the entire world.”
