WHEN: Today, Wednesday, January 24, 2024
WHERE: “CNBC Leaders: Ajay Banga from the World Economic Forum in Davos”
Following is an excerpt from the unofficial transcript of the interview with World Bank President Ajay Banga and CNBC’s Sara Eisen on “CNBC Leaders: Ajay Banga from the World Economic Forum in Davos” today, Wednesday, January 24 airing at 8pm ET. Video will be available on CNBC.com.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
BANGA ON ROLE AS WORLD BANK PRESIDENT AND OUTLOOK ON INTEREST RATES
SARA EISEN: World Bank President Ajay Banga hasn’t granted many interviews since taking the top job after spending over a decade at Mastercard as CEO and Executive Chairman. I did catch up with him at Davos to talk about this transition, his new job, the global economy and his outlook for interest rates in 2024.
AJAY BANGA: The tools you have to change systems are different because it’s a different structure. And then, of course, there’s the complexity of 189 countries as members and that creates its own pulls and pressures, multilateralism, is that what it’s about? But, you know, it’s all good.
EISEN: So are you hoping that we do see a series of interest rate cuts globally to alleviate some of the pressure on those economies?
BANGA: No doubt, interest rate cuts, and also of currencies changing helps them, but I’m not relying on macro to make this work. I think if you do get interest rate cuts, you’re probably looking at in the second half of the year. And I don’t think you’re gonna get as many as people seem to have already factored into that thinking, I think it’ll be later and slower.
