WASHINGTON, April 9. /TASS/. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) allows for oil and gas prices to remain high for a long term, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech ahead of the spring meeting of the IMF and World Bank governing bodies, which will take place next week.

Assessing the scale of the impact of the US and Israeli war against Iran on global energy prices, Georgieva noted that it "depends on whether the ceasefire holds and leads to lasting peace and how much damage the war leaves in its wake."

"Given the uncertainties, our World Economic Outlook, to be published next week, will include a range of scenarios, going from a relatively swift normalization, to a middle scenario, to one where oil and gas prices stay much higher for much longer and second-round effects take hold," Georgieva said.