The ministers and bankers from the G20 reforming the IMF
Posted by adminThey were under fire, accused of having caused the financial crisis. The finance minister and central bankers from the G20 meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Saturday reached an agreement on reforming the banking system and large financial institutions. "There was very little disagreement on the subject. The approval process was very simple, "a statement re South Korean representative, shortly before the adjournment.
Specter of devaluation
The aim of the discussions was to find an agreement to reduce trade imbalances and avoid a war of currencies, after two days of debate in South Korea. Negotiated into the night Friday to Saturday by the Deputy Ministers of Finance, the text has the support of developed countries while Chinese officials have said they "could live with it."These commitments could help assuage fears before markets tensions over exchange rates.
The recent wave of central bank interventions to prevent the rise of their currencies against the dollar had raised the specter of a spiral of competitive devaluations and a return to protectionism. "The G20 must refrain from implementing exchange rate policies designed to give them a competitive advantage", stated in a letter to the G20 U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.While the U.S. accuses China of keeping the yuan artificially low, many emerging countries complain that U.S. monetary policy that brings down the dollar and adds their exports and attract capital in their volatile and speculative .
The communiqué of the G20, however, should not contain numerical targets in excess of current account or a timetable, contrary to what was requested in his letter Mr. Geithner.
Europeans leave two seats
The G20 countries are also reached Saturday in South Korea that the IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn called "the most significant reform ever passed in the governance of the International Monetary Fund. He described the event as historic.The proposed reform, which must be approved by the Board of Directors of the IMF increases the institution's capital, the headquarters of emerging countries to its board of directors and expanding its responsibilities for monitoring States' economic policies .
After this reform is long overdue, the ten largest shareholders of the institution will be the United States, Japan, four European countries (Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy) and the four largest emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China).Europeans leave two seats to the emerging countries, what is "really hard for them," acknowledged a senior U.S. official.
The South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak had Friday called for finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 countries to reach agreement on this reform to "strengthen the credibility of the G20 meetings.
Pending the outcome of this meeting of G20 finance preparatory G20 summit on 21 and 22 November in Seoul, the main European stock markets finished down Friday: Paris lost 0.25%, Frankfurt dropped 0.08 London% and 0.29%. The NYSE has ended without a clear direction, the Dow Jones lost 0.13% but the Nasdaq gained 0.80%.
(With AFP)
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