The World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced Thursday that the planned annual meetings scheduled to take place in Morocco in October 2021 will be postponed by 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Bank Group-IMF Annual Meetings are usually held for two consecutive years at the headquarters of the two multilateral institutions in Washington, D.C. and every third year in another member country, according to a joint statement.

The annual meetings usually bring thousands of government officials, business people, journalists and other representatives from across the globe to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, global financial stability, poverty eradication, inclusive economic growth and job creation, climate change, and others.

In April, the two multilateral lenders already held the 2020 IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in a virtual format. In October, they also held the annual meetings in a virtual format.

Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 48.4 million as of Thursday afternoon, with a death total of over 1.2 million, according to the real-time tracking system developed by the Johns Hopkins University.

In Morocco, the host country of the next annual meetings, COVID-19 cases totaled 235,310 and deaths totaled 3,982 as of Thursday afternoon, the Johns Hopkins tally showed.

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