Mexican president urges 'Marshall Plan' to help emerging markets' coronavirus recovery

• Named after a US general, the Marshall Plan was a major aid program launched by the United States in 1948 to help countries in Western Europe recover after World War Two.
• Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for a Marshall Plan for Europe to cope with the crisis.
• Lopez Obrador was speaking a day after he set out his own plan to shore up Mexico's economy in the coronavirus crisis.

MEXICO CITY: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday urged international lenders to help craft a new "Marshall Plan" to enable emerging markets to cope with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a regular government news conference, Lopez Obrador said he had put forward the idea during a video call with BlackRock Inc Chief Executive Larry Fink on Saturday.

"A kind of Marshall Plan is needed," the leftist president told reporters. "This is what I proposed to him. And I don't see anything, I don't hear anything from the International Monetary Fund. I don't hear anything from the World Bank."

"There haven't been pronouncements on aid, on support," he said.

Help for emerging economies, whose currencies have been battered by the coronavirus crisis, should come via "cooperation for development," not "one-sided loans," Lopez Obrador said.

Named after a US general, the Marshall Plan was a major aid program launched by the United States in 1948 to help countries in Western Europe recover after World War Two.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for a Marshall Plan for Europe to cope with the crisis.

Lopez Obrador was speaking a day after he set out his own plan to shore up Mexico's economy in the coronavirus crisis.

Private sector analysts expect the coronavirus outbreak to plunge Mexico into a sharp recession this year and some economists and business leaders said Lopez Obrador's plan was not ambitious enough to deal with the crisis.