BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 24. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will open a new regional office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trend reports.
According to the IMF, the new office will scale up capacity building, regional surveillance, and outreach to promote stability, growth, and regional integration. Abdoul Aziz Wane was appointed the first director of the regional office.
The two-day conference organized by the IMF and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance on April 24-25 in Riyadh launches the operations of the IMF regional office in Riyadh. The conference aims to review industrial policy’s key principles and draw lessons from its successes and setbacks in other regions, including Asian miracles. The theme is important for the region’s oil-rich economies, as they embark on ambitious reforms to diversify their economies by reorienting resources toward tradable activities, and providing good-paying jobs for citizens.
The conference will bring together regional and international policymakers, as well as leading economists on industrial policy. It will be opened by Faisal bin Fadhil Alibrahim, Minister of Economy and Planning, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Jihad Azour, Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department will close the conference with a roundtable discussion between policymakers from the Gulf Cooperation Council region.