Ignazio Visco: Fourth G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting

Remarks by Mr Ignazio Visco, Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the press conference of the Fourth G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting, Washington DC, 13 October 2021.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

• In our meeting today we had, first of all, a discussion on the global economic situation, outlook and risks.
• We observed that the global recovery has continued at a solid pace in the last few months, recognizing – once again – the key role of vaccination campaigns and of the support of economic policies. At the same time, the recovery remains highly uneven across countries, and there are still considerable downside risks. The pandemic continues to be a major source of risk for the global economy, also because of the possible spread of new variants of COVID-19, and vaccinations are still the first and most important response, not only for public health purposes, but from a purely economic point of view as well.
• We concurred that economic policies should remain supportive for as long as necessary, with the aim of addressing the consequences of the pandemic and steering the global economy toward strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. In this respect, we have reiterated our commitment to advancing the forward-looking agenda set in the G20 Action Plan, as updated in our April meeting.
• In our discussion on the global economy, we focused on inflation developments. The key message that emerged is that the current higher inflation in many advanced countries continues to reflect factors, such as supply bottlenecks relating to the pandemic, that are considered transitory and are therefore expected to fade out, albeit gradually. Inevitably, the widespread uncertainty surrounding the current situation requires central bank Governors to monitor price dynamics closely and continue communicate monetary policies clearly.