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.
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
