IMF's Georgieva says China should reassess best way to deal with COVID

WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - China, the world's second largest economy, should reassess its zero-COVID approach to the pandemic given the emergence of the new highly contagious Omicron variant, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.

While that approach had contained the pandemic in China for "quite some time," the restrictions were now proving to be a burden to the Chinese and global economies, given China's role as a key supplier of goods, she told a World Economic Forum virtual panel.

She said the slowdown in economic growth in China was due to interruptions caused by COVID-19 and the fact that consumption had not picked up as much as expected. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal and David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)