Good morning, everyone. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Tokyo Fiscal Forum.
This is the 11th Forum, and as always, let me begin by thanking our co-hosts—the PRI of Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank Institute—for their strong partnership. I also want to thank the Japanese government for its continued generous support.
We meet at a particularly uncertain time for the world economy. The war in the Middle East is disrupting energy markets, pushing up prices, and weighing on growth.
Oil importers and countries with limited buffers are being hit the hardest. We are already seeing this in the region, where some countries are grappling with fuel shortages.
This challenge comes when fiscal space in many countries is already limited. Global public debt is at a historical high, at around 94 percent of GDP and is projected to keep rising. Interest spending has climbed rapidly, to nearly 3 percent of GDP.
The room for maneuver will only narrow further as countries face higher energy and food prices, rising defense spending and mounting interest bills.
This leaves policymakers facing difficult trade-offs.
Governments must balance protecting the most vulnerable with preserving market price signals. Once the condition stabilizes, governments must rebuild buffers in an environment of increased spending pressures.
The challenge is how to do this in a way that doesn’t create new vulnerabilities. The two main themes of this year’s forum should provide some helpful guidance.
Today, we focus on fiscal policy and growth: how building fiscal space in a growth-friendly manner or changing the composition of spending can improve fiscal dynamics.
Our research shows that there are opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of spending, including by avoiding broad-based subsidies that are costly and regressive.
Tomorrow, we turn to GovTech: how stronger public financial management and revenue administration can help countries do more with limited resources—by improving compliance, strengthening spending controls and enhancing transparency, which is critical for building public support for difficult policy choices.
I look forward to learning how countries are applying the latest technologies in an innovative way.
On both fronts, the IMF is here to support you.
We are scaling up our capacity development, in collaboration with development banks, and through the Global Public Finance Partnership—to which Japan and Korea are generous contributors from the region.
I am keen to hear any suggestions on how we can do more, and how we can strengthen this forum and other platforms for peer learning.
With that, I wish you a productive and insightful discussion. Thank you.
read more: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2026/06/10/sp061026-dmd-speech-the-eleventh-tokyo-fiscal-forum
