Finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world have converged on Bangkok this week for the IMF and World Bank annual meetings, held against a backdrop of an ongoing conflict involving Iran, elevated energy costs, tightening monetary conditions, and growing debt burdens weighing on the global economy. Drawing roughly 18,000 attendees, the gatherings are unfolding as armed hostilities in the Middle East stretch past the seven-month mark.

Attendance at the gathering surpassed the organisation's last overseas event — held in Morocco in 2023 — by roughly 4,000 delegates, according to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Warsh, who chairs the Federal Reserve, is set to join talks with Georgieva on October 16, while Bessent — pointing to obligations at home — will not be part of the Treasury's delegation.

Questions about what a closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran would mean for the global economy have stayed near the top of analysts' agendas. Around a fifth of worldwide oil output has been caught up in the disruption, pushing costs for diesel and fertilisers higher and adding to broader pressure on consumer prices.

Banga, who leads the World Bank, pointed to a trio of mounting pressures — steeper energy bills, weather disruptions tied to a forecast El Niño event, and swelling debt burdens — as factors that stand to place lower-income economies under considerable strain. Facing tightening supplies, the Group of Seven nations collectively authorised the drawdown of 100 million barrels — spanning both crude oil and diesel — from their emergency stockpiles.

A deal unveiled by Trump would open the door to expanded Russian diesel flows on world markets, backed by a short-term easing of existing sanctions. Thinning stockpiles of readily accessible oil leave energy markets exposed to further swings in price, a vulnerability that the measures in place have yet to address.

IMF forecasts place global output expansion at roughly 3% for 2026, with projections for Ukraine and a number of Gulf economies potentially facing downward revision at the next scheduled review. Government borrowing levels have drawn attention as a topic warranting further scrutiny.

According to IMF forecasts, aggregate government borrowing across the world is on track to surpass the equivalent of an entire year's global output before the decade closes — a threshold not crossed since the aftermath of the Second World War. Scheduled repayments on external borrowing are projected to reach $400 billion across lower-income economies by 2026, placing those nations under pronounced fiscal strain.

Elevated borrowing costs, the outflow of capital, and tighter access to credit have combined to deepen pre-existing financial strains. Stricter lending conditions attached to IMF agreements could require governments to reduce public spending and increase tax revenues, with analysts noting that such adjustments carry a risk of social instability.

Delegates convening in Thailand are confronting a web of interconnected pressures — geopolitical friction, elevated prices, tightened energy availability, and growing sovereign debt burdens — that together test the resilience of the international financial framework.