With Asian equity markets tumbling yesterday morning, Christine Lagarde, IMF head, used her pulpit at a Balinese beachside conference centre to deliver some marching orders to economic policymakers in emerging markets.
They should, she said, “use all the tools” at their disposal to stem the capital outflows that would inevitably be triggered by tightening monetary policy in the US, and the burgeoning trade war between the US and China.
For more than a year, the former French finance minister has been warning officials in the developing world to set up buffers in the event of new trouble in the markets, and that moment had arrived, she said.