Lagarde: Oil exporters have not fully recovered from price shock

Lagarde: Governments may be tempted to favour white elephant projects. — AP

DUBAI: Oil exporters have not fully recovered from the dramatic oil price shock of 2014, the head of the IMF said, and she cautioned against spending money on ”white elephant projects”.

“With revenues down, fiscal deficits are only slowly declining, despite significant reforms on both the spending and revenue sides, including the introduction of VAT and excise taxes,” Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, told a conference here last Saturday.