Finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized and developing economies are meeting near London on Saturday to discuss a common approach on how to tackle the global economic crisis.
The London G-20 summit on April 2 was initially going to focus on financial markets and regulation, but the deepening crisis around the world has highlighted the need for a broader economic package. This plan includes everything from stimulus packages to uneven interest rates, said Mark Malloch-Brown, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s envoy to the summit. British Chancellor Alistair Darling told the BBC earlier on Saturday that the world’s leading economies must make an “explicit commitment” to use further fiscal stimulus measures to revive the ailing global economy. But this stance could fuel a rift with the leaders of Germany and France, however, who have suggested that regulatory reform was more important than boosting spending. As the G-20 ministers and central bank governors met in Sussex, south of London, on Saturday, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, also warned them they needed to do much more to tackle the crisis.
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Zoellick said restoring trust in the international banking sector was more important than stimulating growth through tax cuts or spending increases. “Stimulus packages alone are not enough,” the World Bank president said, according to The Guardian newspaper.
“The International Monetary Fund research of some 122 financial and economic crises shows that turnaround can’t happen unless you clean up the bad assets and recapitalize the banks.” In a letter to his G-20 colleagues, Darling said there was a need for tougher global financial regulation, and a return of trust and confidence to financial markets. The summit will also seek to put the global economy on track for sustainable growth, the summit’s Web site says.
