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The
global economy is too dependent on growth from rich nations,
especially the US, Mexico's treasury secretary said Sunday in
urging finance officials from 20 nations to find alternative ways
to help the global economy recovery.
Mexican treasury secretary Francisco Gil Diaz called on the group
of 20 rich and poor nations to strive for "more balanced and
sustainable growth" during the group's annual meeting, this year
held in the mountains of western Mexico.
Diaz also said all members, developed countries in particular,
should provide help for under-developed countries in strengthening
financing capability, improving the environment for investment and
boosting finance security hedge.
The Financial Times reported that away from the official agenda,
numerous bilateral meetings between the countries focused on
currency issues, particularly the concern of some countries that
the Chinese currency is being held at an artificially low
level.
John Snow, the US treasury secretary, also said he would discuss
debt relief for Iraq, following last week's donors' conference in
Madrid.
The introduction of a ‘code of conduct’ for
renegotiating sovereign debt defaults, in place of last year's more
ambitious proposal by the IMF for a system of sovereign bankruptcy,
is also understood to be high on the informal agenda, while the
Argentine delegation was expected to meet all the G7
representatives to discuss responses to its financial
difficulties.
Meanwhile, Reuters noted that US trade officials accused India at
the weekend of hampering efforts to revive world trade talks after
their collapse last month in Cancun, Mexico.
"India's apparent refusal to even negotiate from (the Cancun) text
is very unfortunate," Richard Mills, a spokesperson for the US
trade representative's office, said.
"It highlights the paralysis within the Brazil-India group and will
stall the process".
But the Indian commerce Minister Arun Jaitley rejected the
idea.
"The (Cancun text) cannot be the starting point of any discussion
... It completely failed to gauge the mood at Cancun and in fact
was contrary to the mood prevalent there.
It was in fact the main cause of the stalemate there," Jaitley was
quoted as saying.
Agence France Presse reports that the European Union will return to
World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade-liberalisation negotiations
after carrying out a detailed assessment of what went wrong at a
recent WTO conference in Mexico, Arancha Gonzalez, spokesperson for
European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, said.
She noted the EU assessment would cover four topics:
multilateralism as opposed to bilateralism in trade matters, market
opening rules, the link between trade and development and proposals
to reform the functioning of the WTO.
She added that the debate would involve EU member states, the
European Parliament and civil society.
Itar-Tass noted that a new round of talks over Russia's joining the
WTO began in Geneva at the weekend.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Liberation (France), Joseph
Stiglitz explains that he is a fervent supporter of the WTO, for it
operates under the rule of law, even if its rules are unfair.
Asked if he believed that today's vision of the world economy was
more balanced, Stiglitz notes that, on a global scale, the IMF or
the World Bank today talk more about civil society participation
and of developing country governments than in the past.
Both organisations are aware of the risks,which accompany the
liberalisation of financial markets.
They now even evoke the possibility of state failure – World
Bank Press Review.