CRYPTO RESTRICTIONS Apart from restructuring debt, regulating cryptocurrencies is another priority area for India, which Georgieva agreed with. "We have to differentiate between central bank digital currencies that are backed by the state and stable coins, and crypto assets that are privately issued," Georgieva said. "There has to be very strong push for regulation... if regulation fails, if you're slow to do it, then we should not take off the table banning those assets, because they may create financial stability risk." Yellen said she had not suggested the "outright banning of crypto activities, but it was critical to put in place a strong regulatory framework." (Reporting by Aftab Ahmed, Sarita Chaganti Singh and Shivangi Acharya; writing by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Krishna N. Das and William Mallard)
Twitter: @Sudipto_Reuters;)) (Adds Yellen comments paragraphs 6-8)
By Aftab Ahmed, Sarita Chaganti Singh
BENGALURU, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Group of 20 (G20) nations have
some disagreements over restructuring debt for distressed
economies, the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
said on Saturday, adding that banning private cryptocurrencies
should be an option.
India's G20 presidency comes as its South Asian neighbours
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan are seeking urgent IMF funds
due to an economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and
the Russia-Ukraine war.
China, the world's largest bilateral creditor, urged the
group of big economies on Friday to conduct a fair, objective
and in-depth analysis of the causes of global debt issues as
clamour grows for lenders to take a large haircut, or accept
losses, on loans.
"On debt restructuring, while there are still some
disagreements, we now have the global sovereign debt roundtable
with consideration of all public and private creditors," IMF
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters after
chairing the roundtable with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman.
"We just finished a session in which it was clear that there
is a commitment to bridge differences for the benefit of
countries."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said there were no
"deliverables" from the meeting, which was mostly
organisational.
Further discussions of the panel, which includes major
bilateral creditors including China, India and the G7 countries,
several debtor countries, are planned around the time of the IMF
and World Bank spring meetings in April.
"We certainly had that agreement that this is a useful
forum," Yellen told Reuters in an interview. "We look forward to
participating in it."
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