Kristalina Georgieva, the new head of the IMF, has called on the US and China to move towards a lasting “trade peace” for the benefit of the flagging global economy,  after they reached a limited truce in their commercial hostilities last week. 

Ms Georgieva told reporters at the IMF’s annual meeting in Washington that it was “good news” that the US and China were “talking to each other” after weeks of mounting tensions, but the ceasefire at hand, which leaves all the existing tariffs in place, was not enough to lift the cloud hanging over the world economy.

“What we need is to reach not just truce. We need to have trade peace,” Ms Georgieva said. “We need to go forward to a system that is in health and in force, so we can see trade return to its role as an engine of the world economy.”