G-20 pledge sustained action on financial crisis
ENGLAND: Finance officials from rich and developing countries pledged
Saturday to do “whatever is necessary” to fix the global economy,
including supervision of freewheeling hedge funds and restoring bank
lending by dealing with the shaky securities burdening their finances.
But officials remained cool to a U.S. push for more coordinated
government spending to stimulate economies.
They called instead on the International Monetary Fund to assess the
individual government actions already taken and what more might be
required, rather than laying out definite plans to ramp up spending.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20, which
accounts for more than 80 percent of the world economy, agreed there was
an “urgent need” for a big boost to the lending resources of the
International Monetary Fund to help struggling governments in the
developing world.
They left the specific amount and who would contribute open, to be
taken up at the much-anticipated summit of the group’s national leaders
in London on April 2.
Horsham, Sunday, AP |