The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, has called on Europe to be more innovative.
Especially in comparison to the United States, Europe is lagging behind, Georgieva said on Thursday at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.
There is a power of innovation in the US, she said. It is easy there to turn this into a business and ultimately realize it on a larger scale. Europe, on the other hand, still has a lot to do to unleash the power of innovation, she said. Georgieva cited the different prices for patents as an example.
According to Georgieva, the US also benefits from an oversupply of labour. It is true that immigrants create a domestic problem and not everyone who crosses the border contributes positively to the economy, said Georgieva, but this labour supply also gives the United States another advantage.
As there is no shortage of labour, wages in the US are not rising excessively. In Europe, there needs to be more investment in human capital to make the labour force more agile and dynamic.
According to an IMF forecast, the US economy is growing much more strongly than expected. The growth forecast for this year has been revised upwards by 0.6 points to 2.7%. The forecast for the eurozone is 0.8%.
Georgieva added that Europe had been hit much harder than the US by the energy crisis in the wake of the Russian war against Ukraine.