IMF chief urges better global policy coordination

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde has urged better global policy cooperation and economic reforms that could help tackle specific challenges in both advanced and emerging market economies.

After the outbreak of the financial crisis, there was "really intensive" global cooperation in policy-making between 2008 and 2009, but after the crisis abated and the global economy embarked on recovery, the degree of urgency calling for cooperation has diminished, Lagarde told a group of reporters.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" economic reform recommendation suitable for all the IMF's 188 member countries, and countries should take different fiscal consolidation paces and set different reform priorities, Xinhua quoted her as saying during a roundtable briefing.

Advanced economies including the euro zone still have "significant potential risk", and there should be structural reforms and a banking union "in a comprehensive way" in the currency bloc, she said.