MOMENTUM AND CONFIDENCE IS CRITICAL

4:00AM Monday Jan 19, 2009

by Mike Moore

PUBLISHED BY ‘THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD’

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PUBLISHED BY ‘THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD’

BRASIL E UE DEVEM ATUAR JUNTOS EM CÚPULA DO G20 (Brazil)

22/12/2008 – 18:01

Da FolhaNews

PUBLISHED BY ‘CORREIO BRAZILIENSE’ (Brasil)

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PUBLISHED BY ‘CORREIO BRAZILIENSE’ (Brasil)

REDESIGNING CAPITALISM

Monday, December 8th, 2008, 10:21 am ET

by Michel Rocard

PUBLISHED BY ‘THE JORDAN TIMES’

When the heads of state of the world’s 20 largest economies come together on short notice, as they just did in Washington, D.C., it is clear how serious the current global crisis is. They did not decide much, except to call for improved monitoring and regulation of financial flows. More importantly, they committed themselves to launching a lasting process to reform the world’s financial system.

Of course, those who dreamed of a Bretton Woods II were disappointed. But the original Bretton Woods framework was not built in a day; indeed, the 1944 conference was preceded by two and-a-half years of preparatory negotiations, which is probably the minimum needed to decide such weighty issues. The recent G-20 summit occurred with virtually no real preliminary work.

Three tasks must now be addressed. First, a floor must be put under the international financial system in order to stop its collapse. Second, new regulations are needed once the system revives, because if it remains the same way, it will only produce new crises. Finding the right mix will not be easy. For 25 years, the world has experienced a huge financial crisis every five years, each seemingly with its own cause.

The third task is to focus on real economic activity, end the recession, sustain growth, and, above all, reform the capitalist system to make it be less dependent on finance. Long-term investments, not short-term profits, and productive work, rather than paper gains, need to be supported.

The first task is already being tackled. But, although the United States and some European countries have gone a long way toward restoring the lending capacity of banks, that may not be enough. After all, if the economy is to grow again, banks need borrowers, but the recession has led entrepreneurs to cut their investments.

The second task remains open. Disagreements about how to re-regulate the financial markets are deep, owing to countless taboos and the huge interests at stake. Moreover, there can be no comprehensive agreement that does not take into account the relationship between finance and the real economy.

The essential problem in addressing the third task is to find out precisely what is going on in the real economy. Some states (Iceland and Hungary) are clearly bankrupt. Some merely face a hazardous financial situation (Denmark, Spain, and others). Their financial crisis is the main reason for their weakness.

All of these problems are so difficult to resolve because they have been festering for so long. It is now increasingly evident that today’s crisis has its roots in February 1971, when US president Richard Nixon decided to break the link between the dollar and gold. Until that point, America’s pledge to maintain the gold standard was the basis for the global fixed-exchange-rate system, which was the heart of the Bretton Woods framework.

During the 27 years that it lasted, huge growth in international trade, supported by non-volatile pricing, was the norm, and large financial crises were absent.

Since then, the international financial system has been highly volatile. The era of floating exchange rates that followed the end of the gold standard required the development of products that could protect international trade from price volatility. This opened the way to options, selling and buying on credit, and derivatives of all kinds.

These innovations were considered technical successes. Prices were (mostly) stabilised, but with a slow, if continuous, rising trend. The market for these financial products grew over 30 years to the point that they delivered huge opportunities for immediate gain, which provided a strong incentive for market participants to play with them more and more.

During this time, capitalism – smooth and successful between 1945-1975 (sustained high growth, low unemployment, and no financial crises) – weakened. Through pension funds, investment funds, and arbitrage (or hedge) funds, shareholders became well organised and seized power in developed countries’ firms. Under their pressure, more and more processes were “outsourced”.

In real terms, wages no longer rose (indeed, the average real wage has been stagnant for 25 years in the US), and a growing share of manpower (currently around 15 per cent) was without steady employment.

Everywhere, the share of wages and incomes began to fall as a proportion of GDP. As a result, consumption weakened, unsteady employment grew, and unemployment stopped declining.

Under such circumstances, the upper middle classes in developed countries increasingly came to look for capital gains instead of improving their living standards through productive work. This promoted inequality, and led to the under-regulated financial system’s seizure of power over the entire economy, destabilising the real economy by fatally weakening its capacity to react to external shocks.

Today’s crisis marks the end of economic growth fuelled only by credit. But untying the knot that an overweening financial sector has drawn around the economy will take time. Indeed, there is still no consensus that this needs to be done. Yet the G-20 has opened the way to discussion of these fundamental issues.

Today’s recession will be a long one, but it will compel everybody to consider its root causes.

(*) – The writer, former prime minister of France and leader of the Socialist Party, is a member of the European Parliament.

©Project Syndicate, 2008. www.project-syndicate.org

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PUBLISHED BY ‘THE JORDAN TIMES’

NOW IS THE TIME FOR POLITICS – MORE GOVERNMENT IS THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PROBLEM, AND KEY TO SOLVING WORLD POVERTY (Brasil)

DECEMBER 2008 – FEBRUARY 2009

by Luis Inácio Lula da Silva

PUBLISHED BY ‘NEWSWEEK’ (USA) – SPECIAL EDITION – ISSUES 2009

The world today is experiencing turbulence unlike anything we’ve seen in decades. The U.S. credit crisis has contaminated the international economy, and financial systems have been shaken to the core, undermining economic doctrines once treated as absolute truths.

As I told the UN. General Assembly in September, now is the time for politics, for governments to use public control and oversight to halt the economic anarchy. I welcome the actions that other countries have taken. But it will be some time before their initiatives kick in. That means more steps are needed in the meantime to safeguard the world’s most vulnerable: workers whose jobs and purchasing power are on the line, simple folk trying to save for the future, the poor who depend on the state.

The abuses and errors coming to light daily are all evidence that our existing system of international economic governance has broken down. To develop a better one, the world’s major developing countries should be called on to join the debate. We have plenty to contribute. Take Brazil. We are ready to do our part, and our economy is better prepared than most to confront the crisis. We have said no to macroeconomic adventurism. Inflation is under control and we are growing steadily. We have plenty of foreign reserves and owe nothing to the International Monetary Fund. This gives us the tools and the peace of mind to withstand the turbulence the crisis will bring.

Brazil is also better prepared to deal with the social and economic dislocation that may ensue. Consider: since I took office in 2003, more than 10 million Brazilians have joined the workforce. Some 20 million have risen out of absolute poverty. Our internal market is expanding, giving us an important economic cushion. Above all, we are redistributing income and reducing social inequality. These advances have nothing to do with luck or a favorable environment. They are the result of hard work by the Brazilian people and their government.

Weaving a broad social safety net is a central part of this endeavor. Our income-transfer program now distributes benefits to 11 million poor families nationwide, on the condition that mothers get prenatal care and parents keep their children in school and vaccinated. Our success shows that individual governments can and must play a vital role in reducing poverty and inequality. And our example in health care and education is already being made available to other countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia facing similar challenges.

That said, no state will escape this crisis on its own. Coordinated actions are needed. Yet they will succeed only if international decision making is redesigned in accordance with new realities; the institutions set up after World War II reflect a balance of power that’s long been superseded. This challenge actually goes far beyond the immediate financial storm. Other threats loom, such as hunger and poverty, the rising price and scarcity of food, the energy crisis and climate change. World commerce remains distorted, and the best means of addressing that—die Doha round of trade talks — could collapse.

Still, none of these obstacles is insurmountable. We all know the solutions, and we have the tools and the resources to succeed. Too often what we lack is political will. Many people today are comparing our current situation with the Great Depression. But we should take those parallels further and should summon the spirit of solidarity that helped create the New Deal, harnessing it to forge a new global pact to roll back poverty and extreme inequality. Contrary to what so many believe, globalization has only increased the economic and social responsibilities of governments. We must renew our commitment to strong multilateralism and we must make that multilateralism more democratic, in order to build agreements that reflect the legitimate interests of all nations. This means, among other things, enlarging the U.N. Security Council and revamping the IMF to provide effective financial support to countries in need.

The United States-by virtue of its size and its economic prowess—is and will continue to be a key player in the global search for common solutions. Washington has played such a decisive role since the end of World War II. Given the challenges and opportunities facing us today, we in the developing world hope that we can once again count on the American people to come to the defense of multilateralism, equality and justice. This is not the time for protectionism, but for progressive action born of generosity and solidarity that will forge collective answers to 21st-century challenges.

Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva is the President of Brazil.

PUBLISHED BY ‘NEWSWEEK’ (USA)

SHARING THE RESPONSABILITY

DECEMBER 3-8, 2008

by Michael Levitin

PUBLISHED BY ‘NEWSWEEK’ – Print Edition – (USA)

He was Chief of Staff to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the leading voice behind Germany’s refusal to fight in Iraq. Now German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is the Social Democratic Party candidate for chancellor in next year’s elections, running against the popular Christian Democrat incumbent, Angela Merkel. In his first major interview with the U.S. press, Steinmeier sat down with NEWSWEEK’s Michael Levitin to discuss German troop engagements in Afghanistan, Russia’s recent aggression, the global financial crisis and how Germany might work alongside the United States. Excerpts:

LEVITIN: The day after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to install missiles in Kaliningrad if Washington did not “rethink” its deployment of a NATO missile shield in Eastern Europe. Did Moscow’s latest show of aggression shift the dynamic between Russia and Europe? How should you respond- and what should Europe’s response be?

STEINMEIER: Medvedevs announcement the day after the elections was clearly the wrong signal at the wrong time. We have no illusions about Russia. In the last few years it has often proved itself a difficult partner. The question remains how to deal with this huge country in Europe’s immediate neighborhood; having to choose between containment versus engagement, I advocate the latter. We must try to develop relations with Russia that go beyond economic interests and contribute to increased stability and security. After all, it is in our own interest to make sure that a Russia that is looking for its own identity is politically and culturally anchored in die West.

LEVITIN: Do you see Germany as a middleman, acting as a buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe-perhaps at the moment even Russia’s closest EU ally?

STEINMEIER: Russia is aware of our uniquely close relationship with the United States. We are firmly embedded in NATO and the EU and thus we don’t aspire to play the role of a middleman. Together with our European partners we showed a strong and outspoken response to Russia’s role in the conflict in Georgia. I think Europe’s united voice no doubt contributed to the military conflict ending. Now the stabilization of the region as a whole has to continue, and for genuine stability we need Russian cooperation. As for energy links between the EU and Russia, the answer depends on which European country you talk to. But in general, Russia depends as much on Europe and America buying its goods as we rely on Russia supplying us with natural gas and oil. As far as Germany is concerned, it is little known in the United States that we have worked successfully for decades to diversify our suppliers of various forms of energy and fuels, with Russia but also Norway and Africa being important suppliers.

LEVITIN: You mentioned the conflict In Georgia. Should that country and Ukraine be Invited to Join NATO?

STEINMEIER: This is not a simple yes-or-no decision. With national elections looming, the domestic situation in Ukraine has changed, as has the situation in the Caucasus since the conflict broke out this summer. Yes, we remain committed to supporting and assisting these countries on the road ahead. But concerning the Membership Action Plan, Germany and other European governments continue to stand by their position.

LEVITIN: The most urgent U.S. foreign-policy question involving Germany, which Obama raised many times during his campaign, is Afghanistan and whether Germany will contribute more troops there to stabilize the south. How much is your country willing to sacrifice for this partnership, putting its soldiers into harm’s way?

STEINMEIER: I have spoken to Barack Obama twice, and from these exchanges I know that he sees Afghanistan in a very nuanced way. I feel we see eye to eye in our assessment that we’re facing a very difficult security situation, but that military means alone cannot bring about the necessary changes. Our approach has to be a comprehensive one, and contrary to what some people may say, Germany has played its part.

LEVITIN: In the north, certainly. But It’s in the south where the greatest violence has taken place, and where Obama’s asking for greater German participation.

STEINMEIER: We have shouldered our share of the military responsibility and we have also enlarged our engagement. We are about to increase our troops by 30 percent, to 4,500. We are participating in aerial surveillance across the whole of Afghanistan, including the south, and German radio engineers are also stationed in Kandahar. The German Air Force runs flights for all NATO countries throughout Afghanistan, again including the south. We took over the lead of the Quick Reaction Force in the north. And let us not forget that circumstances there have also changed; the north, too, has seen its share of armed opposition activities increasing in the last month. But our engagement in Afghanistan is about much more than military action. We have always said that we will only be successful if we succeed in helping rebuild the country and its economy. Civil reconstruction is the second important pillar of our engagement on the ground, and we’ll continue to increase our contribution in this area next year.

LEVITIN: Given the turmoil in Pakistan, what do you think the next steps forward ought to be?

STEINMEIER: The security of the whole region strongly depends on Pakistan. If we want to combat terrorism in Afghanistan, we have to succeed in stabilizing Pakistan politically and economically. This calls for a strengthened Pakistani commitment to combat terrorism, but it also calls for international assistance for this country. It needs a substantial loan from the IMF. We also need to be ready to help stabilize the country in a lasting way.

LEVITIN: On Iran, what realistic hopes do you see of bringing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the table and persuading him to give up Tehran’s nuclear ambitions? And how far will you be willing to push?

STEINMEIER: No doubt there is hope in the international community that after 29 years of standstill, a new approach may be possible. We all remember the reasons for the break-off of relations between the U.S. and Iran. Since then, U.S.-Iranian relations have also been a story of missed opportunities: when Washington signaled openness, Tehran wasn’t willing or able to respond in kind, and vice versa. I think it would be worthwhile trying to have direct talks, but the Iranians have to know it is up to them to prove they do not aspire to nuclear weapons-and that they’re willing to play a constructive role in the region. I have to admit I am skeptical, and can only express my hope that the leaders in Iran seize this opportunity.

LEVITIN: Turning to the financial crisis, the banks got a bailout. Now the automobile manufacturers are seeking the same thing. How do you see EU countries regaining their competition policy-and their legitimacy-after this?

STEINMEIER: I believe the politicians would have lost their legitimacy if they hadn’t acted. What we’re facing here is the very visible failure of the market. We had to make sure that the crisis in the financial markets does not lead to a total breakdown of the financial system as a whole. On both sides of the Atlantic, unconventional means were applied to manage the crisis. Honestly speaking, many of the measures taken in the U.S. seemed a bigger break with American tradition than can be said about European measures.

LEVITIN: How important is it that developing countries play a greater decision-making role In the future? For example, we saw hints of the G8 expanding into a G20 several weeks ago in Washington.

STEINMEIER: What is the most fundamental challenge the world is facing today? To my mind, it consists of integrating the emerging powers of the 21st century into a system of shared global responsibility. I am talk ing about countries like China and India, but also Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia. Can any of the global challenges we face be tackled without them? I don’t think so. That is why we have to make them stakeholders, and in that respect the recent financial summit in Washington was historic. To me it is obvious we cannot stop there.

PUBLISHED BY ‘NEWSWEEK’ (USA)

PROTECTIONISM REARS ITS HEAD AS WTO TRIES TO WRAP UP DOHA – CONGRESSMEN TELL BUSH TO REJECT TABLED TRADE DEAL – SUMMIT TO END SEVEN YEARS OF TALKS PUT IN DOUBT

Thursday December 4 2008

by Larry Elliott, Economics Editor – The Guardian

PUBLISHED BY ‘THE GUARDIAN’ (UK)

A sign that the current crisis is fanning a desire for protectionism emerged yesterday when members of Congress warned George Bush against trying to fast-track a trade deal for the end of the year.

Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organisation, is considering calling trade ministers to Geneva to conclude the Doha liberalisation talks.

“Unfortunately, the negotiating texts currently on the table would provide little if any new market access for US goods, and important advanced developing countries are demanding even further concessions from the US,” said a bipartisan letter from Charles Rangel, Max Baucus, Jim McCrery and Charles Grassley. Democrats Rangel and Baucus chair the Ways and Means and the Finance committees respectively, while McCrery and Grassley are the ranking Republican members.

“We see no tangible progress, and in fact believe that some of our trading partners have become even further entrenched in their unacceptable positions.”

Lamy wants to bring more than seven years of acrimonious talks to an end with a meeting next weekend, after last month’s summit of G20 leaders in Washington instructed trade ministers to settle differences over agriculture and manufactured goods. Some officials believe it would become more difficult to conclude any deal once Barack Obama is sworn in next month.

WTO sources last night talked of a meeting on December 13, although Lamy was more cautious. In a fax to the WTO’s 153 members, he said he had yet to decide whether there had been enough progress since talks broke down in July: “As we all know, we still have a number of outstanding issues. But the reality is the relevance of what we are doing to the financial crisis,” he said. “If we fail we have a problem; but although there remains the risk of failure, the risks involved in not trying are higher.”

He is concerned that economic distress in the US, Europe and Asia is already prompting countries to use protectionist weapons yet to be outlawed by the WTO – raising tariffs to the maximum permitted, and introducing anti-dumping regulations.

US agriculture secretary Ed Schafer said he was confident a deal could be done, and confirmed that Washington was ready to make a big cut in its agreed ceiling for agriculture subsidies if other countries opened their markets further to US farm produce. “We in the US remain confident we can see a successful completion to the Doha round this year,” he told reporters in Beijing.

However, the Congressmen warned Bush against being rushed into a deal that would be rejected on Capitol Hill. “We strongly urge you not to allow the calendar to drive the negotiations through efforts to hastily schedule a ministerial meeting, without adequate groundwork having been laid.

“Developed and advanced developing countries must commit to provide meaningful new market access opportunities if Congress is to support a deal.’

“Achieving the necessary flexibility from our trading partners could require new thinking … and our negotiators should be given time to explore such options. Otherwise, the likely result will be a deal that Congress cannot support – an outcome that would be detrimental to US farmers, workers and firms, the global economy, and the WTO itself.”

Amy Barry, trade spokeswoman for Oxfam, said: “This round of talks was meant to be primarily about development, not about market access for US farmers and companies. Yet Oxfam is hearing that the US, with tacit support from the European Union, Australia and others, has now put extra demands on the table, mostly about further prising open the markets of major emerging economies.

“These come as China has seen a major fall in its exports, leading to many enterprises closing and huge numbers laid off to go back onto the land … India has lost 20% of its exports in a year, with 1.2m job losses in textiles and clothing alone … It is difficult to understand why anyone would seriously expect China and India to agree to yet more trade concessions.”

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PUBLISHED BY ‘THE GUARDIAN’ (UK)

PUXEU CREE QUE SOBRE LOS PREACUERDOS DE JULIO DE LA OMC PODRÍAN CERRARSE ESTE MES – El secretario de Estado de Medio Rural y Agua, Josep Puxeu, ha señalado hoy que tras el mandato del G-20 de reabrir las negociaciones de la Ronda de Doha de la Organización Mundial del Comercio, si se parte de los preacuerdos de julio podría cerrarse un acuerdo antes de que acabe el mes (Spain)

03/12/2008

PUBLISHED BY ‘AGROINFORMACION’ (Spain)

EFE- Durante la inauguración de las Jornadas Internacionales sobre gestión de riesgos en la agricultura europea, que celebra hoy y mañana la organización agraria UPA en Madrid, Puxeu ha destacado que la Unión Europea está en condiciones de afrontar nuevamente la Ronda de Doha, que se reúne a partir del 15 de diciembre en Ginebra.

Ha añadido que ahora que está cerrado el chequeo médico de la Política Agraria Común que define y legitima los apoyos al sector agroalimentario comunitario y se ha obtenido la apuesta clara de la Comisión Europea, respaldada por 24 Estados miembros, de mantener una PAC fuerte más allá del horizonte presupuestario de 2013, la UE afronta con fortaleza las negociaciones de la OMC.

Ha indicado que ya en julio la UE estuvo cerca de cerrar el acuerdo adaptando los apoyos a la agricultura con la liberalización comercial que permitiera el desarrollo de los países emergentes y que siempre que se parta de los preacuerdos alcanzados en julio la predisposición de la UE se mantendrá, en caso contrario se reafirmará en sus premisas.

Puxeu considera que toda vez que la OMC respete los apoyos a la calidad diferenciada, a la seguridad alimentaria, la condicionalidad y el desarrollo rural queda legitimada la PAC y con ello un marco estable de apoyos al sector.

Además ha destacado el importante papel del sistema español de seguros agrarios como apoyo y garantía de las rentas de los agricultores y ganaderos y ha anunciado que se estudiará la petición del sector de incluir líneas que garanticen unos ingresos que cubran los costes de producción o unas rentas mínimas.

En este sentido el secretario general de UPA, Lorenzo Ramos, ha valorado el reconocimiento que de los seguros agrarios subvencionados ha hecho la UE en la reforma de la PAC.

Ha destacado la necesidad de que los agricultores y ganaderos se conciencien de que este mecanismo es una forma de garantizar sus rentas, de momento sólo ante eventualidades climáticas o sanitarias.

Ha demandado a la Administración que estudie la posibilidad de introducir además líneas que cubran a los productores de riesgos derivados de los vaivenes del mercado, como los vividos el pasado año en sectores como el lácteo o el de las materias primas, para poder garantizar unas rentas.

Ha insistido en que ya en su momento se estudió la posibilidad de adoptar un seguro que garantizase unos ingresos que cubrieran los costes de producción y no fue posible, por lo que ha reiterado esfuerzos a la Administración para posibilitar su implantación.

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DOHA TALKS MAKE HEADWAY

Nov 28, 2008 1:19 PM

PUBLISHED BY ‘TVNZ’ (New Zealand)

Talks to unstick the Doha world trade round have made some headway, ambassadors to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said on Thursday.

New Zealand ambassador Crawford Falconer, who chairs the WTO negotiations on agricultural products, said that countries have begun to budge from their positions in the wake of a high-level political push for an agreement.

“I have seen some material change, but not all the things I would like to have seen have happened,” he told reporters after an evening meeting at the WTO’s Geneva headquarters.

US President George Bush and other leaders have been pushing for a breakthrough in the seven-year-old WTO talks as a means to bolster the troubled global economy.

A new WTO agreement would cut subsidies and tariffs on a wide range of traded goods and cross-border services, prying open food, fuel, transportation and other markets and therefore encouraging global economic activity.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has been looking for signs of movement in technical talks between diplomats before inviting trade ministers to Geneva to hammer out a deal in agricultural and manufactured goods – the two main areas of the Doha accord.

Talks earlier on Thursday skated over sensitive issues such as the levels of US subsidies on cotton, and a controversial facility to let poor countries shield subsistence farmers during crises, envoys said.

“We had more positive discussions than we had before,” Brazil’s WTO ambassador Roberto Azevedo said of those talks.

A dispute about the “special safeguard mechanism” for farmers caused a meeting of ministers in July to fail, with India squaring off against the United States and other countries who said the facility could actually close off existing markets instead of opening up new ones.

Azevedo told journalists that in Thursday’s talks on that mechanism “there wasn’t exactly convergence or agreement, but there was no clear-cut rejection.”

“You learn in these negotiations to read between the lines,” he said. “There was certainly more engagement, more interaction than there was before.”

Diplomats that a ministerial meeting next month could start around December 13, though no dates are expected to be set until Sunday or later.

Estimates of the benefits of the WTO accord vary widely. A recent study from the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute said more than $US1 trillion of trade was at stake.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘TVNZ’ (New Zealand)

UNCERTAINTIES BEDEVIL PLANS TO KEEP WORLD TRADE FLOWING

28/11/2008 1:00:00 AM

PUBLISHED BY ‘THE CANBERRA TIMES’ (Australia)

Trading nations around the world are saying the right things about preventing a surge of protectionism that would choke global trade when it needs to be boosted to help pull economies out of their slump. But amid fears of a deepening recession stretching beyond 2009, will governments act in conformity with their promises?

Leaders of the 21 economies in APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, hit the right notes when they issued a statement during their summit in Lima, Peru, last weekend. To counter calls to shield countries and industries from competition by restricting imports, the APEC leaders, who oversee half the world’s economic activity, said that in the next 12 months they would not raise new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, impose new export restrictions, or implement measures inconsistent with the World Trade Organisation, including those that stimulate exports.

This was an endorsement of the free trade section of a declaration issued by the summit of the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies in Washington on November 15. The G20 accounts for about 90 per cent of global economic activity and 80 per cent of trade. Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea and the US are members of both APEC and the G20. So the combined words of leaders of these two groups should carry weight.

Yet two days after Russia’s President, Dmitry Medvedev, put his name to the G20 declaration, his Deputy Finance Minister, Dmitry Pankin, announced that Moscow would raise tariffs on imported cars to protect Russian producers.

Russia has also announced a general review of trade agreements that may lead to a further increase in import duties and a cut in quotas for allowable imports. Russia says these measures were planned in advance of the G20 meeting. ”No one said that anyone should scrap existing barriers or go back on existing decisions,” Mr Pankin explained.

China, which is anxious to help exporters hit by falling demand in the US and Europe, took a somewhat different tack. Three days before the G20 summit it raised export tax rebates paid on more than 3700 types of goods almost 28 per cent of the total sold overseas. Yet China has a huge trade surplus and has been criticised by economists who argue that the export sector receives too much favorable treatment from the government, which should instead stimulate domestic demand.

So far there has been no reneging on APEC and G20 free trade pledges. But these are early days. It will take resolute national leadership and continuing international consultation to resist protectionism as economic woes get worse and cries for help by affected industries become louder.

Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a free-trade think-tank in Brussels, is concerned that the APEC and G20 pledges still leave scope for countries to impose anti-dumping duties on imports deemed to be below the cost of production, and to provide emergency state aid to politically sensitive industries. Indeed, he says that such measures are supplanting permanent import tariffs as the main method of protectionism and were not covered by either the APEC or G20 statements.

Still, APEC went somewhat further than the G20 in supporting an early resumption of WTO negotiations to liberalise international trade. These negotiations collapsed last July after seven years because of disagreements between the US and India, backed by China, over the extent to which agriculture in developing countries should be shielded from foreign competition.

China’s President Hu Jintao said in Lima that Beijing believed reviving the WTO talks and bringing them to a successful conclusion should be a top priority. APEC leaders directed their trade ministers to meet in Geneva next month to try to advance the WTO negotiations. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said a successful outcome would be a ”huge shot in the arm for the global economy” and to confidence.

If the world trade deal stalls again, there is another option for Pacific Rim nations. They could forge a trans-Pacific free trade agreement. The Bush Administration in the US, Australia and Peru announced recently that they would join Brunei, China, New Zealand and Singapore in talks to try to build the core of a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific. The first round of negotiations will be held in March in Singapore.

However, the Obama factor is looming over all these issues. Barack Obama, the US President-elect who takes office in January, outlined a potentially protectionist agenda during the election campaign. He said he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and a pending bilateral deal with South Korea, rebalance economic ties with China to reduce the huge US trade deficit, challenge unfair trade in the WTO and elsewhere, and discourage US companies from outsourcing work to countries such as India and the Philippines.

If Obama, backed by a Democratic majority in Congress, takes up these cudgels, the prospects of success in both the WTO and trans-Pacific trade liberalisation negotiations will recede while the likelihood of a slide into wider tit-for-tat protectionism will increase.

The International Chamber of Commerce pointed out recently that parallels are being drawn between the financial and economic crisis of today and the Great Depression of the 1930s. ”Almost 80 years ago, many nations reacted to the Great Depression by raising border tariffs and ended up making matters worse for themselves included. Beggar-my-neighbour protectionism ended up beggaring everyone. That is one of the most unambiguous lessons of the 1930s,” the chamber said.

Obama and the leaders of other major economies and trading nations should bear this in mind as they consider policies for 2009 and beyond.

The writer, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South-East Asian Studies in Singapore.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘THE CANBERRA TIMES’ (Australia)

FOR A BETTER FINANCIAL ORDER – Chinese leaders and scholars suggest reforms to strengthen the international financial system

November-26-2008 NO. 48 NOV. 27, 2008

by Ding Ying

As the international financial crisis plunges many countries into economic turmoil, China’s relatively stable economic growth is reassuring to the international community.

As a result, the world is paying more and more attention to China’s opinions about the ongoing crisis and possible solutions. Chinese leaders and economists recently made a series of suggestions for reforming the current international financial system.

China’s efforts

Chinese President Hu Jintao participated in the Group of 20 (G-20) Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy held on November 15 in Washington, D.C., where he delivered a speech calling for international cooperation to get through this “difficult moment.”

In his speech, Hu clearly stated the Chinese stance on international financial reform. “Reform of the international financial system should aim at establishing a new international financial order that is fair, just, inclusive and orderly and fostering an institutional environment conducive to sound global economic development,” he said.

The Chinese Government has taken many measures to safeguard economic development and financial stability. After the crisis began, China made timely adjustments to its policies and strengthened macroeconomic regulation, Hu said. These adjustments included lowering the bank required reserve ratio, lowering interest rates and easing corporate tax burdens. Hu also promised to play a “constructive role” in restoring the international financial system and suggested four key reforms: increased international cooperation in financial supervision, reform of international financial organizations, increased regional financial cooperation and diversification of the international monetary system.

As the world’s most populous developing country, China would make an important contribution to international financial stability and world economic growth simply by maintaining steady economic growth, the president said. Several days before the summit, China announced a 4-trillion-yuan ($586 billion) economic stimulus plan. Observers believe that the plan, which concentrates on stimulating domestic consumption in China, may restore confidence in world economic development.

In a November 16 Xinhua report, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi outlined five achievements that came from Hu’s participation in the financial summit. First, he met with other G-20 leaders to discuss the root causes of the financial crisis and possible solutions and reforms, which they described in a joint statement. Second, Hu introduced measures the Chinese Government has taken to safeguard economic growth and financial stability. Third, he helped guide the direction of international financial reform. Fourth, Hu called for international efforts to help developing countries. Finally, Hu promoted China’s bilateral relationships with several countries by meeting with their leaders during the summit.

Cooperation, not competition

Chinese economists also had opinions on the current world economic situation. They provided suggestions for reforming the international financial system and maintaining economic and financial stability in China.

Zhang Ming, a researcher from the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in World Affairs on November 16 that there were resemblances between the current international economic and financial situation and the Great Depression. The U.S. dollar has been greatly weakened by the subprime mortgage crisis, but the euro is struggling as well. “The supreme financial structure is on the edge of collapse,” he said.

The countries affected by the crisis have two options, Zhang said. One is to unite and cope with the crisis together by building new international financial and monetary systems, which could cushion the U.S. dollar’s fall. The other is for each country to look out for itself, which might cause discord and competition among the largest economies and lead the dollar system to collapse completely.

“The latter way further undermines the global economic and financial order. Then a new crisis, or even wars, will break out,” said Zhang, arguing the world must join hands to deal with the current financial crisis.

Regarding international monetary reform, independent economist Xiang Songzuo said in Elite Reference on November 16 that there is little possibility the International Monetary Fund will be recast as the world’s central bank. Instead, the crisis might cause new regional currencies to emerge. “Influential currencies, like the euro, yen and the renminbi, can play an important role in stabilizing regional economies,” he said.

Su Jingxiang from the Center for Globalization Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said in People’s Daily that since the financial sector is the weak point of the Asian economy, Asian countries must enhance both regional and global cooperation. He said that based on the foreign reserves held by China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN members, Asia could become a leader in international financial fields. “Only through strengthened cooperation can China protect its interests well and perform its function better in the international cooperative system,” Su said.

“China’s top priority is to deal with the crisis with caution and run its own business well,” said Xiang Lanxin, an observer of world affairs, in Global Times. Xiang urged China to promote domestic demand over exports in its response to the crisis. Massive exports could push other countries into trade protectionism and make China a target of international criticism.

Highlights of the G-20 Financial Summit

Leaders attending the G-20 financial summit agreed on an action plan to combat the current financial crisis on November 15 in Washington, D.C. After discussing the reasons behind the current crisis, the leaders issued a statement pledging to “enhance our cooperation and work together to restore global growth and achieve needed reforms in the world’s financial systems.”

The leaders agreed that the current financial system has vulnerabilities such as weak underwriting standards, unsound risk management practices, increasingly complex and opaque financial products, and consequent excessive leverage.

Further, inconsistent and insufficiently coordinated macroeconomic policies, inadequate structural reforms and unsustainable global macroeconomic outcomes are the combined elements that resulted in the current financial crisis.

The leaders stressed that free market principles, including the rule of law, respect for private property, open trade and investment, competitive markets, and efficient, well-regulated financial systems, are essential to economic growth.

They vowed to take “strong and significant actions” to reform current financial systems, stimulate their economies, provide liquidity, strengthen the capital of financial institutions, protect savings and deposits, address regulatory deficiencies, unfreeze credit markets and ensure that international financial institutions can provide critical support to the global economy.

The plan is based on five principles: strengthening transparency and accountability, enhancing sound regulation, promoting integrity in financial markets, reinforcing international cooperation and reforming international financial institutions. The principles have been broken down into immediate and medium-term actions to be taken by March 31, 2009.

The leaders also agreed to meet again by April 30, 2009, to review the plan’s implementation.

(Source: Xinhua News Agency)

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PUBLISHED BY ‘BEIJING REVIEW’ (China)

WTO TO DECIDE SOON ON NEW DOHA TALKS

First Posted 14:58:00 11/20/2008

by Alan Raybould – Reuters

SIEM REAP, Cambodia – WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said on Thursday he would decide rapidly whether to call a ministerial meeting to pursue a Doha trade agreement but played down a Dec. 8 deadline suggested by a Brazilian minister.

He said ministers from some of the world’s poorest countries meeting in Cambodia this week on trade and aid matters were pushing for a quick deal because they feared protectionist groups would use the global economic slump to push their agenda.

Leaders of the G20 group of rich and emerging economies pledged on Saturday to try to agree on the outlines of a new accord in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha round by the end of the year to help deal with the financial crisis.

In an interview with Reuters, Lamy acknowledged the political impetus but said he needed to be sure there would be broad agreement on technical matters before calling ministers to the WTO headquarters in Geneva.

“I haven’t yet taken a decision but I know I have to take it rather rapidly,” he said, adding he would be back in Geneva on Friday morning working on plans.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said this week that a meeting would need to be called by Dec. 8 if a deal was to be had by the end of the year.

Lamy played down such deadlines.

“They all have their own notion of timing because they all have their own constraints. We know we don’t have much time left,” he said. “The technical options should be on the table 10 days before the ministers negotiate them.”

He said the economic crisis made it all the more crucial to get a deal quickly, especially for poor developing countries wanting market access for their goods.

“Given the economic crisis, the percolation of the financial crisis into the economy, they believe what’s on the table will be in danger if it only happens six months, a year, a year-and-a-half from now,” Lamy said.

He gave the example of tariff ceilings set in existing trade agreements, which are typically higher than the actual tariffs imposed by countries.

“Their fear is that with the economic crisis biting, protectionist lobbies will look for more protection and the applied tariffs will be raised.”

The Doha round was launched in the Qatari capital seven years ago to free up world trade by cutting farm subsidies, and reducing tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods, with a clear mandate to help developing countries.

A meeting of ministers in July came close to a breakthrough but faltered because of differences between the United States and India over measures to protect subsistence farmers in poor countries from a surge in imports.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘BUSINESS INQUIRER’ (Philippines)

APEC MINISTERS BACK G20 TRADE PUSH

First Posted 09:47:00 – 11/20/2008

Agence France-Presse

LIMA – APEC leaders meeting in Peru are to push to revive moribund global trade talks by the end of the year as a way of combating the world economic crisis, officials here said Wednesday.

The Doha round of trade negotiations, which hit a dead end in July, should be brought back in line with the recommendations of the G20 summit held in Washington last Saturday, foreign and trade ministers from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum agreed.

“The time has come for the Doha round to be brought to a conclusion, and that I think is the main topic of conversation for APEC this week,” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told reporters after a meeting with his APEC counterparts.

APEC leaders meeting on Saturday and Sunday will likely “direct trade ministers to meet before the end of the year in an effort to bring the Doha round to a successful conclusion,” he said.

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the ministers’ meeting was “devoted to these discussions about how do we get this elusive breakthrough on Doha.”

“This is APEC’s opportunity to put its stamp on and build on the G20 leaders’ declaration,” Schwab said.

Japanese Trade Minister Toshihiro Nikai told reporters: “We are all united and heading toward the same direction.”

On World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, “we renewed our determination to take action in line with the strong message sent at the (G20) summit,” Nikai said.

Leaders from the Group of 20 major developed and developing powers committed at the emergency summit in Washington to counter the financial crisis by striving to “reach agreement this year” on the trade talks.

Several nations, including the United States, Japan, China and Russia, are members of both the G20 – which includes the world’s biggest industrialized and developing nations – and APEC.

In Washington, US President George W. Bush’s advisor for international economic affairs, Dan Price, said Bush would be backing the G20 response to the international economic meltdown at the APEC summit.

“I will say that certainly one of our priorities … would seek to broaden the support for that declaration by having it endorsed by the other members of APEC,” he said.

The Doha-round talks failed at the WTO headquarters in Geneva because of a disagreement between the United States and India over cotton.

Officials have since described that obstacles on narrow issues as that, given the subsequent financial crisis, could be overcome to allow a global trade deal to be reached.

“The urgent need for (a deal) is even more compelling now,” Smith said.

The APEC gathering was also showcasing the rising political might of the world’s big emerging economies, which sat alongside the wealthy nations at the G20 summit.

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s arrival Wednesday ahead of the summit generated intense media coverage in Peru, with live television broadcasting his escorted trip from the airport to the center of Lima to see Peruvian President Alan Garcia.

Hu was on the final leg of a Latin American tour that included Costa Rica and Cuba.

With so many ministers and officials converging on Lima, security was heavy.

Some 39,000 police have been deployed in Lima and another 60,000 officers were on full alert across the rest of the country, which is still haunted by a bloody Maoist insurrection in the 1980s and 1990s.

The presence of Bush – on his last scheduled overseas trip as US president – was expected to stir protests, with Peru’s main labor union blaming him for the global financial turmoil and promising a demonstration on Friday.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The bloc, created in 1989, accounts for 60 percent of the planet’s economic output and nearly half of its trade.

Copyright 2008 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘BUSINESS INQUIRER’ (Philippines)

WORLD BANK CHIEF: BETTER TIES WITH RUSSIA A MUST

Nov. 19, 2008, 2:53PM

by George Frey Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press

BERLIN, — Russia’s ties with the United States and the European Union must be improved to ensure stability, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Wednesday.

Zoellick said it is widely recognized that weak states export trouble — including economic problems, refugees and even narcotics and crime.

“I hope relations with Russia will be guided by a farsighted vision that can create durable, peaceful, mutually beneficial ties,” Zoellick said at a speech at Berlin’s Humboldt University.

Zoellick said the global economic crisis shows that the world needed “reinvented global frameworks, to weather the storms of economic changes or climate or insecurity.”

“Today’s financial crisis could be an opportunity to develop sounder economic relations that might be a foundation, with Russia’s help, to build cooperation in solving common problems,” he said.

Zoellick added that Russia’s actions domestically would shape the nature of its relationships with its neighbors.

“President (Dmitry) Medvedev has spoken of Russia’s need to build a rule-of-law society and his own task to develop ‘civic and economic freedoms,’” Zoellick said.

He said recent summits of G-20 leaders and the G-20 finance ministers were examples of the kind of action needed to stabilize the world economy, and emphasized the need to include developing countries.

“As the financial crisis has shown, we need more than the Group of Seven to address today’s 21st Century problems,” he said. “Rising economic powers such as China, India, and Russia must be part of the solution.”

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PUBLISHED BY ‘HOUSTON CHRONICLE’ (USA)

BRASIL É UM DOS PAÍSES QUE TERÁ VOZ ATIVA NA ECONOMIA MUNDIAL

17 de Novembro de 2008

As soluções para a crise financeira internacional devem ser encontradas com a ajuda dos países em desenvolvimento e não mais apenas pelas sete nações mais ricas do mundo – como era antes da reunião do último final de semana em Washington, na qual participaram 20 lideranças de países que somam mais de 85% do PIB mundial. Segundo o presidente da República, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, uma das decisões consensuais tomadas pelos líderes é a necessidade da participação não apenas dos países mais ricos do mundo, mas dos emergentes, dos países em vias de desenvolvimento, que têm uma grande população. “Já não é mais o G-8. Agora é o G-20”, afirmou Lula no programa de rádio Café com o Presidente, realizado nesta segunda-feira (17).

Segundo o presidente da República, há uma grande afinidade de posições e compromisso de todos os governantes do G-20, em torno das medidas para resolver a crise financeira internacional. A primeira delas é restabelecer a liquidez e restaurar a confiança no mercado financeiro, pois fica muito difícil a economia funcionar sem crédito. “No Brasil, já adotamos medidas nesse sentido. Faz 30 dias que estamos adotando medidas para permitir a irrigação do sistema financeiro e garantir que se tenha crédito para que o consumo continue acontecendo, para que as empresas continuem produzindo, o comércio vendendo e o povo comprando. É isso que vai ativar a economia”, avalia o presidente.

Anti-recessão – A segunda medida aprovada pelos líderes foi a adoção de políticas anti-recessivas para evitar uma grande desaceleração do crescimento econômico mundial, especialmente uma queda abrupta e significativa do crescimento, que já está acontecendo em alguns países europeus. O terceiro ponto importante, segundo o presidente, é a regulação do sistema financeiro de modo a conter a especulação descolada da economia real e do mundo do trabalho. “O sistema financeiro tem que ajudar o setor produtivo para que ele gere os empregos necessários, para que o comércio cresça, para que o consumo cresça e para que a sociedade viva uma vida digna e decente”, explicou o presidente. Para ele, a falta de controle de alguns países foi a causa da crise financeira. “As medidas que tomamos, por unanimidade, são extremamente importantes para que a gente possa controlar o sistema financeiro e evitar que eles continuem a prática do cassino”, disse Lula.

Um dos resultados mais importantes da reunião, segundo o presidente, foi o clima de cooperação internacional. “Finalmente, todos os países se colocaram de acordo que nós precisamos tomar decisões coletivas para evitar que uma tomada de posição em um país possa prejudicar outro”. Como parte desta política de cooperação, está a retomada da Rodada de Doha, para desenvolver o comércio mundial.

Na opinião do presidente da República, a reunião de Washington foi um marco na história do século XXI. “Participei da reunião mais importante entre líderes de países, de tantas que eu já fiz”, contou o presidente. Segundo ele, o encontro foi marcado pelo consenso de que o grupo de 20 países deve trabalhar junto. “Na hora de tomar as grandes decisões, o G-20 se transformou num fórum importante. Daí a minha crença de que estamos no caminho certo para debelar essa crise e para evitar outras crises”, afirmou.

FMI – O ministro Guido Mantega disse durante a reunião de ministros da Fazenda, que essa crise é o momento de aperfeiçoar e democratizar as instituições financeiras internacionais, como o Banco Mundial e o Fundo Monetário Internacional. Para o ministro, as Metas do Milênio, que têm por objetivo a redução da desigualdade, devem ser o centro das políticas econômicas. “Não podemos nos esquecer dos enormes desafios da humanidade, como a pobreza, a fome e as mudanças climáticas”, disse o ministro.

Editado pela Secretaria de Comunicação Social da Presidência da República
Nº 728 – Brasília

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PUBLISHED BY ‘EM QUESTÃO’ (Brasil)

HAY QUE ROMPER CON EL MODELO NEOLIBERAL Y EL SISTEMA CAPITALISTA – Sentenció Evo Morales al intervenir ante Naciones Unidas

17/11/2008

NACIONES UNIDAS, 17 de noviembre. – El presidente boliviano, Evo Morales, planteó este lunes romper con el neoliberalismo y el sistema capitalista, además de reformular las normas de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) para salir de la crisis financiera mundial, informó ABI.

“Para salir de la crisis hay que romper con el modelo neoliberal y el sistema capitalista”, afirmó el mandatario ante el pleno de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas.

En Bolivia, dijo, se ha comenzado a cambiar la política neoliberal dignificando al Estado y resolviendo los problemas sociales, lo que ha permitido sobrellevar los efectos de la crisis financiera global.

“El comercio injusto implementado por algunos organismos internacionales no es la solución para mi país”, señaló Morales, quien apuntó, además, que para salir de la crisis financiera hay que cambiar las reglas de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC).

El sistema financiero mundial debe ser reestructurado por los 192 países que forman las Naciones Unidas y no solo por los 20 más desarrollados, declaró en referencia a la Cumbre del G-20 celebrada hace poco en Washington.

De igual forma, se debe reestructurar el Banco Mundial (BM) y el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), señaló Evo.

Criticó que en menos de 15 días los países que integran el G-20 hubieran otorgado 30 veces más dinero a los bancos del Wall Street que a los recursos que se destinan para conseguir los Objetivos del Milenio, entre ellos acabar con la pobreza.

Según EFE, durante su intervención, el Jefe de Estado también agradeció a la comunidad internacional el apoyo a su gestión en la crisis política que vivió Bolivia recientemente.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘GRANMA’ (Cuba)

BLIND LEADING THE ONE-EYED

Nov 18, 2008

by Chan Akya

My worst fears about the weekend gathering in Washington of world leaders to discuss the financial crisis were realized overnight when the statement after their meeting was released. It contained a host of generic fluff and very little mention of the specific actions required to tackle the gargantuan economic problems of today.

The statement accompanying the meeting, held under the Group of 20 (G-20) banner, could have been put together by a bunch of first-year economics students. It probably was, but that’s not what worries me about the initiative. In the opening part of the statement, the following section seemed positive: “Our work will be guided by a shared belief that market principles, open trade and investment regimes, and effectively regulated financial markets foster the dynamism, innovation, and entrepreneurship that are essential for economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction.”

After paying lip service to the idea of free market principles in the introduction, every aspect of the statement from then on relates to market, fiscal and monetary intervention on an epic scale by the assembled bureaucrats. In the next section on “root causes of the current crisis” is the following gem:

Major underlying factors to the current situation were, among others, inconsistent and insufficiently coordinated macroeconomic policies, inadequate structural reforms, which led to unsustainable global macroeconomic outcomes. These developments, together, contributed to excesses and ultimately resulted in severe market disruption.

Right there you have the prevailing notion that government intervention is what will help the global economic system recover; indeed it was the absence of dialogue between these super-smart folks that led us to the current swamp. In related news, pigs were seen flying over Washington all day, but I digress.

Discussing “Actions taken and to be taken”, the statement goes on to say the following, laying the grounds for justifying pretty much any action by any government anywhere in the world but more importantly also bringing in the widely discredited multilateral agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) back into the global picture: “As immediate steps to achieve these objectives, as well as to address longer-term challenges, we will:

- Continue our vigorous efforts and take whatever further actions are necessary to stabilize the financial system.

- Recognize the importance of monetary policy support, as deemed appropriate to domestic conditions.

- Use fiscal measures to stimulate domestic demand to rapid effect, as appropriate, while maintaining a policy framework conducive to fiscal sustainability.

- Help emerging and developing economies gain access to finance in current difficult financial conditions, including through liquidity facilities and program support. We stress the International Monetary Fund’s important role in crisis response, welcome its new short-term liquidity facility, and urge the ongoing review of its instruments and facilities to ensure flexibility.

- Encourage the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to use their full capacity in support of their development agenda, and we welcome the recent introduction of new facilities by the World Bank in the areas of infrastructure and trade finance.

- Ensure that the IMF, World Bank and other MDBs have sufficient resources to continue playing their role in overcoming the crisis.”

Right here we have the makings of a return to the world economic order of yore, namely for the governments of the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations to continue their spendthrift ways banking on the savings of emerging countries, while the latter remain happy in their role as supplicants to the global economy rather than assuming a leading role as is warranted by current fundamentals.

The return of international finance’s Terrible Twins is further proof of a hankering for the orthodoxy of export-oriented emerging economies securing access to financing as arranged by these shoddy bankers. It is amazing to me that countries like South Korea, Brazil and India signed up to this nonsense despite the very real structural problems created by these very programs in the recent past for these countries by the IMF.

Against these ideas there is an alternative of emerging countries floating their currencies and relying on internal consumption, which would predicate increased capital inflows for emerging countries at the cost of increasing capital costs for G-7 members. This option was apparently never even brought up in the meeting.

Secondly, the idea that emerging countries face multiple tariff barriers that keep millions in poverty was also not sufficiently discussed in the Washington meeting. To wit, Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is singularly responsible for the poverty, starvation and malnutrition of millions of people in Africa and Latin America, yet there was not a mention of this unfair trade barrier in the Washington meeting. Instead, the idea of circling back to the status quo in one form or another appears to have taken precedence.

Reforming financial markets

Something must have gone wrong in Washington because the next section of the statement relating to financial system reforms actually makes sense in places. I am guessing this was simply an oversight by the assembled officials; actual implementation will probably fail to follow any of the principles laid down. Paragraph 9, which details the common principles of reform, has the following five guiding headlines:

1. Strengthening transparency and accountability.

2. Enhancing sound regulation.

3. Promoting integrity in financial markets.

4. Reinforcing international cooperation.

5. Reforming international financial institutions.

I am really happy to note in this section that European attempts to reduce disclosure on financial assets by banks have come to naught. The 2009 leadership of Brazil, the United Kingdom and Korea to implement a series of recommendations will coordinate the G-20 Finance Ministers Group. Personally, I found that trio an odd choice, with only Brazil having a functioning financial system not overwhelmed by near-term liabilities. Then again, finding countries with relatively unstressed financial systems is a fairly difficult matter and perhaps the assembled leaders wanted to have people with sufficient experience of pain – for example the UK – participating in the recovery plans. That seems fine overall. The specific areas of recommendations being laid out are as under:

“Mitigating against pro-cyclicality in regulatory policy.

Reviewing and aligning global accounting standards, particularly for complex securities in times of stress.

Strengthening the resilience and transparency of credit derivatives markets and reducing their systemic risks, including by improving the infrastructure of over-the-counter markets.

Reviewing compensation practices as they relate to incentives for risk taking and innovation.

Reviewing the mandates, governance, and resource requirements of the IFIs [international financial institutions].

Defining the scope of systemically important institutions and determining their appropriate regulation or oversight.”

The next section on Open Global Economy isn’t worth reading, containing as it does platitudes about the World Trade Organization, the Doha round and so on without any substantive discussion on handling current conflicts on tariff barriers and capital flows.

The rest of the document deals with specific recommendations relating to the implementation of the five principles of reform as laid out previously. Of these, the move towards accounting standardization will help resolve a number of capital flow constraints, regulatory arbitrage and other egregious misuses of fiduciary principles in the financial markets.

Another welcome initiative in the financial market section is the reform of the over-the-counter market for credit default swaps (CDS), which will almost surely move to an exchange-traded or electronic trading format in the next few months. The need for this market is paramount more now than ever before, and I am happy that the G-20 has understood the rationale for a continued broadening of this market, rather than a reversal or even a shutdown as was suggested by a number of government officials in the US and Europe of late.

Missed opportunity

Overall, the G-20 meeting strikes me a missed opportunity for discussing a broadening of the world’s economic engine by inculcating stronger measures towards consumption in emerging countries and moving them away from the IMF-orthodoxy of remaining suppliers of cheap goods to developed countries.

Failures in the financial system need to be addressed, but the root cause of a misallocation of capital from high-growth areas to lower-growth areas, that is from savers in countries like China, Brazil and India to the overextended consumers and pensioners of the US and Europe, was not discussed let alone addressed.

The coming wave of Keynesian spending across the world will only intensify this misallocation of capital as emerging countries continue to hold nearly worthless pieces of government debt issued by G-7 countries in return for vacuous promises of continued economic growth.

Then again, perhaps it is not the G-7 countries that are to blame for suggesting ways of keeping themselves economically relevant; such moves after all reflect their self-preservation instinct. What galls me is that leaders of countries such as Brazil, China and India bought into this malarkey.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘ASIA TIMES’ (Hong Kong – China)

EL PARTO DE LOS MONTES – La reunión de Washington

Noviembre 16 de 2008 – 4 y 12 p.m.

Fidel Castro Ruz

Bush se mostraba feliz con tener a Lula a su diestra en la cena del viernes. A Hu Jintao, al que respeta por el enorme mercado de su país, la capacidad de producir bienes de consumo a bajo precio y el caudal de sus reservas en dólares y bonos de Estados Unidos, lo sentó a su izquierda.

Medvédev, a quien ofende con la amenaza de ubicar los radares y la cohetería estratégica nuclear no lejos de Moscú, fue ubicado en un asiento distante del anfitrión de la Casa Blanca.

El rey de Arabia Saudita, un país que producirá en un futuro próximo 15 millones de toneladas de petróleo ligero a precios altamente competitivos, quedó también a su izquierda, al lado de Hu.

Su más fiel aliado en Europa, Gordon Brown, Primer Ministro del Reino Unido, no aparecía cerca de él en las imágenes.

Nicolás Sarkozy, descontento con la arquitectura actual del orden financiero, quedó distante de él, con el rostro amargado.

Al Presidente del Gobierno español, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, víctima del resentimiento personal de Bush y asistente al cónclave de Washington, ni siquiera lo vi en las imágenes televisadas de la cena.

De esa forma fueron ubicados los asistentes al banquete.

Cualquiera hubiera pensado que al día siguiente se produciría el debate de fondo sobre el peliagudo tema.

Temprano en la mañana del sábado, las agencias informaban sobre el programa que tendría lugar en el National Building Museum de Washington. Cada segundo estaba programado. Se analizarían la actual crisis y las medidas a tomar. Se iniciaría a las 11 y 30 hora local. Primero, sesión gráfica: “fotos de familia”, como las llamó Bush; veinte minutos después, la primera plenaria, seguida de una segunda a la mitad del día. Todo rigurosamente programado, hasta los nobles servicios sanitarios.

Los discursos y análisis durarían aproximadamente tres horas y 30 minutos. A las 3 y 25, hora local, almuerzo. De inmediato, a las 5 y 5, declaración final. Una hora después, a las 6 y 5, Bush marcharía a descansar, cenar y dormir plácidamente en Camp David.

El día transcurría, para los que seguían el evento, con la impaciencia por conocer cómo en tan breve tiempo se abordarían los problemas del planeta y de la especie humana. Estaba anunciada una declaración final.

El hecho real es que la declaración final de la Cumbre se elaboró por asesores económicos preseleccionados, bastante afines al pensamiento neoliberal, mientras Bush en sus pronunciamientos pre y pos cumbre reclamaba más poder y más dinero para el Fondo Monetario Internacional, el Banco Mundial y otras instituciones mundiales que están bajo riguroso control de Estados Unidos y sus más cercanos aliados. Ese país había decidido inyectar 700 mil millones de dólares para salvar a sus bancos y empresas transnacionales. Europa ofrecía una cifra igual o mayor. Japón, su más firme pilar en Asia, ha prometido una contribución de 100 mil millones de dólares. Esperan de la República Popular China, que desarrolla crecientes y convenientes vínculos comerciales con los países de América Latina, otra contribución de 100 mil millones procedentes de sus reservas.

¿De dónde saldrían tantos dólares, euros y libras esterlinas como no fuera endeudando seriamente a las nuevas generaciones? ¿Cómo se puede construir el edificio de la economía mundial sobre billetes de papel, que es en lo inmediato lo que realmente se pone en circulación, cuando el país que los emite sufre un enorme déficit fiscal? ¿Valdría la pena tanto viaje por aire hacia un punto del planeta llamado Washington para reunirse con un Presidente al que le quedan sólo 60 días de gobierno, y suscribir un documento que ya estaba diseñado de antemano para ser aprobado en el Washington Museum? ¿Tendría razón la prensa radial, televisiva y escrita de Estados Unidos al no concederle atención especial a ese viejo rejuego imperialista en la cacareada reunión?

Lo increíble es la propia declaración final, aprobada por consenso de los participantes en el cónclave. Es obvio que constituye una aceptación plena de las exigencias de Bush, antes y durante la cumbre. A varios de los países participantes no les quedaba otra alternativa que aprobarla; en su lucha desesperada por el desarrollo, no deseaban aislarse de los más ricos y poderosos, así como de sus instituciones financieras, que constituyen mayoría en el seno del Grupo G-20.

Bush habló con verdadera euforia, usando palabras demagógicas, leyó frases que retratan la declaración final:

“La primera decisión que tuve que tomar —dijo— fue quiénes venían a la reunión. Decidí que teníamos que tener a las naciones del Grupo de los 20, en lugar de solamente el Grupo de los Ocho o el Grupo de los Trece.

“Pero una vez que se toma la decisión de tener al Grupo de los 20, la pregunta fundamental es con cuántas naciones de seis diferentes continentes, que representan a diferentes etapas de desarrollo económico, es posible alcanzar acuerdos que sean sustanciales, y me complace informarles que la respuesta a esa pregunta es que lo logramos.”

“Estados Unidos ha tomado algunas medidas extraordinarias. Ustedes, que han seguido mi carrera, saben, yo soy un partidario del libre mercado, y si uno no toma medidas decisivas, es posible que nuestro país se suma en una depresión más terrible que la Gran Depresión.”

“Recién empezamos a trabajar con el fondo de 700 mil millones de dólares que está comenzando a liberar dinero a los bancos.”

“De manera que todos entendemos la necesidad de promover políticas económicas a favor del crecimiento.”

“La transparencia es muy importante para que los inversionistas y los reguladores puedan saber exactamente qué está pasando.”

El texto del resto de lo que dijo Bush es por el estilo.

La declaración final de la Cumbre, que requiere por su extensión media hora para leerlo en público, se define a sí misma en un grupo de párrafos seleccionados:

“Nosotros, los líderes del Grupo de los 20, hemos celebrado una reunión inicial en Washington el 15 de noviembre entre serios desafíos para la economía y los mercados financieros mundiales¼ “

“¼ debemos poner las bases para una reforma que nos ayude a asegurarnos de que una crisis global como esta no volverá a ocurrir. Nuestro trabajo debe estar guiado por los principios del mercado, el régimen de libre comercio e inversión¼ “

“¼ los actores del mercado buscaron rentabilidades más altas sin una evaluación adecuada de los riesgos y fracasaron¼ “

“Las autoridades, reguladores y supervisores de algunos países desarrollados no apreciaron ni advirtieron adecuadamente de los riesgos que se creaban en los mercados financieros¼ “

“¼ las políticas macroeconómicas insuficientes e inconsistentemente coordinadas, e inadecuadas reformas estructurales, condujeron a un insostenible resultado macroeconómico global.”

“Muchas economías emergentes, que han ayudado a sostener la economía mundial, cada vez más sufren el impacto del frenazo mundial.”

“Subrayamos el importante papel del FMI en la respuesta a la crisis, saludamos el nuevo mecanismo de liquidez a corto plazo y urgimos a la continua revisión de sus instrumentos para asegurar la flexibilidad.

“Animaremos al Banco Mundial y a otros bancos multilaterales de desarrollo a usar su plena capacidad en apoyo de su agenda de ayuda¼ “

“Nos aseguraremos de que el FMI, el Banco Mundial y los otros bancos multilaterales de desarrollo tengan los recursos suficientes para continuar desempeñando su papel en la resolución de la crisis.”

“Ejercitaremos una fuerte vigilancia sobre las agencias de crédito, con el desarrollo de un código de conducta internacional.”

“Nos comprometemos a proteger la integridad de los mercados financieros del mundo, reforzando la protección del inversor y el consumidor.”

“Estamos comprometidos a avanzar en la reforma de las instituciones de Bretton Woods, de forma que puedan reflejar los cambios en la economía mundial para incrementar su legitimidad y efectividad.”

“Nos reuniremos de nuevo el 30 de abril de 2009 para revisar la puesta en marcha de los principios y decisiones tomadas hoy.”

“Admitimos que estas reformas sólo tendrán éxito si se basan en un compromiso con los principios del libre mercado, incluyendo el imperio de la ley, respeto a la propiedad privada, inversión y comercio libre, mercados competitivos y eficientes y sistemas financieros regulados efectivamente.”

“Nos abstendremos de imponer barreras a la inversión y al comercio de bienes y servicios.”

“Somos conscientes del impacto de la actual crisis en los países en desarrollo, particularmente en los más vulnerables.

“Mientras avanzamos, estamos seguros de que mediante la colaboración, la cooperación y el multilateralismo superaremos los desafíos que tenemos ante nosotros y lograremos restablecer la estabilidad y la prosperidad en la economía mundial.”

Lenguaje tecnocrático, inaccesible para las masas.

Pleitesía al imperio, que no recibe crítica alguna a sus métodos abusivos.

Loas al FMI, Banco Mundial y las organizaciones multilaterales de créditos, engendradores de deudas, gastos burocráticos fabulosos e inversiones encaminadas al suministro de materias primas a las grandes transnacionales, que son además responsables de la crisis.

Así por el estilo, hasta el último párrafo. Es aburrida, plagada de lugares comunes. No dice absolutamente nada. Fue suscrita por Bush, campeón del neoliberalismo, responsable de matanzas y guerras genocidas, que ha invertido en sus aventuras sangrientas todo el dinero que habría sido suficiente para cambiar la faz económica del mundo.

En el documento no se dice una palabra de lo absurdo de la política de convertir los alimentos en combustible que propugna Estados Unidos, del intercambio desigual de que somos víctimas los pueblos del Tercer Mundo, ni sobre la estéril carrera armamentista, la producción y comercio de armas, la ruptura del equilibrio ecológico, y las gravísimas amenazas a la paz que ponen al mundo al borde del exterminio.

Sólo una frasecita perdida en el largo documento menciona la necesidad de “afrontar el cambio climático”, cuatro palabras.

Por la declaración se verá cómo los países presentes en el cónclave demandan reunirse de nuevo en abril de 2009, en el Reino Unido, Japón o cualquier otro país que cuente con los requisitos adecuados —nadie sabe cuál—, para analizar la situación de las finanzas mundiales, con el sueño de que las crisis cíclicas nunca vuelvan a repetirse con sus dramáticas consecuencias.

Ahora les corresponderá a los teóricos de izquierda y de derecha opinar fría o acaloradamente sobre el documento.

Desde mi punto de vista, no fueron rozados ni con el pétalo de una flor los privilegios del imperio. Si se dispone de la paciencia necesaria para leerlo desde el principio hasta el final, podrá apreciarse cómo se trata simplemente de una apelación piadosa a la ética del país más poderoso del planeta, tecnológica y militarmente, en la época de la globalización de la economía, como quienes ruegan al lobo que no se devore a la Caperucita Roja.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘GRANMA’ (Cuba)

G20 CLOSES IN ON DEAL TO DETECT RISKY INVESTING AND WEAK SPOTS

Published: November 15, 2008, 23:41

AP

Washington: European officials at the extraordinary Group of 20 summit in the US capital yesterday said a draft agreement among the world leaders likely would call for intensified government efforts at bolstering national economies, cooperation on international regulation of the financial system and reform of global structures to aide needy developing countries.

Signalling a shift away from the traditional global economic dominance of the United States, the European Union and Japan, developing economic powerhouses from China to Brazil took a seat at the meetings.

The International Monetary Fund has reported expectations that worldwide growth next year would be fuelled by such countries even as US, EU and Jap-anese economies shrink.

In comments to reporters on Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted the shift.

“It is the first time that emerging and developed countries are meeting together in this way and are really in with both feet. In this respect it is a new beginning in a very, very difficult situation. It gives hope that policies can operate jointly,” she said. “The world financial summit will adopt an action plan here today and thus demonstrate the international community’s ability to act.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said early yesterday that world leaders were making progress in what he termed difficult talks, but that final agreement on the particulars of global regulation and reform were not likely to come out of the Washington meeting. He added, however, the assembled leaders would be able to agree on “quick action results,” on fiscal policy, like tax cuts or public spending increases.

President George W. Bush agreed that there was progress at the summit, with world leaders moving closer to a deal to better detect risky investing and regulatory weak spots.

But, he said, the crisis has not ended and much work needs to be done.

Before the leaders began their talks yesterday, Bush said he was pleased that they are discussing a way to move forward.

Coordinated response

European officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft agreement was still under negotiation, said a follow-up meeting was likely in April in London, Paris or Tokyo, after President-elect Barack Obama takes over in the White House.

In a radio address Obama said he was pleased Bush brought world leaders to Washington to discuss turmoil in the financial markets, “because our global economic crisis requires a coordinated global response.” In an effort to avoid surprise calamities like the one now sweeping the globe, the assembled leaders were expected to focus on a commitment to tougher accounting rules and greater transparency. They formally opened the session with an sumptuous White House dinner before getting down to business yesterday in closed-door talks.

The leaders were on track to approve measures to make the world financial system more accountable to investors and more transparent to regulators, officials said.

That would included more effective accounting rules governing how companies value their assets, a weakness seen as partly responsible for the current financial crisis.

A new early warning system would look for signs of problems like those in the US housing market and related overuse of mortgage-backed securities.

On Friday, the heads of the International Monetary Fund, the world’s financial firefighter, and the Financial Stability Forum, a group that includes central banks and major financial regulators, said they would cooperate on “early warning exercises” to detect vulnerabilities.

Also, a new “college of supervisors” would gather global regulators to scrutinise the world’s largest financial institutions together to compare notes as they seek to spot excessive risk-taking.

The president-elect stayed away from the meeting, but designated former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Rep. Jim Leach to represent him in meetings with leaders on the sidelines.

In addition to Brown, leaders from France, Germany, Russia, China and India were among those in Washington.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘GULF NEWS’ (Dubai)

ASO WANTS BANKS TO COME CLEAN ON NON-PERFORMING LOANS (Japan)

Published: November 15, 2008, 23:41

AP

Washington: Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso believes world leaders gathering this weekend to confront global economic turmoil can learn valuable lessons from Japan’s efforts to recover from its own financial crisis in the 1990s, a spokesman said.

During that decade, the world’s second-largest economy was strongly criticised for doing too little to improve its banking sector’s health after a stock and real estate bubble burst.

Aso’s message at the summit is that banks must quickly and fully disclose their non-performing loans and remove them from their balancesheets, spokesman Kazuo Kodama told reporters on Friday.

Soul-searching

Leaders have “no luxury to engage in blame games”, Kodama said, but they should engage in “candid soul-searching on why this happened”. Aso, who planned meetings with the leaders of Brazil, Britain, Indonesia, Australia and the European Union, came to this weekend’s gathering of 20 of the world’s biggest developed and developing economies after announcing that Japan was ready to lend up to $100 billion (Dh367.8 billion) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support nations reeling from the global financial crisis.

Kodama said Aso hopes China and countries in the Middle East also will contribute.

He said the IMF and World Bank’s governance structures should be reviewed to reflect better the world economic structure’s changing nature.

Japan has almost $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves, and officials in Tokyo have repeatedly said Japan was ready to provide the IMF with money for rescue packages. The Washington-based IMF has dipped into its reserves to provide emergency loans to Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine worth more than $30 billion.

Financial recovery efforts in Japan have contributed to an environment of more profitable lending; many banks have merged to face global competition, after years of writing off mountains of non-performing loans that piled up after the bubble burst in the early 1990s.

Kodama, in outlining Aso’s position on the economic crisis, said that providing public funds for banks also would help resolve the problem of non-performing loans. He said: “The world should also be making efforts to support the dollar-based currency system, on which the current international economic and financial systems rely.”

Meanwhile, the finance ministers of China, South Korea and Japan also met on Friday evening and agreed that their countries “should play a pivotal role in maintaining economic and financial stability in the region,” according to a joint statement.

They recognised the need to boost financial cooperation and agreed to explore an “increase in the size of bilateral currency swap arrangements” among the countries.

Top finance officials from the countries will hold a financial stability workshop in Tokyo on November 26.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘GULF NEWS’ (Dubai)

LOS LÍDERES MUNDIALES ACUERDAN MAYOR TRANSPARENCIA Y REGULACIÓN FINANCIERA – Proponen crear un organismo que controle los grandes bancos y reforzar el papel del Fondo Monetario y el Banco Mundial

16.11.2008

por Mercedes Gallego – Corresponsal, Washington

La reforma de los mercados financieros y mayor transparencia y regulación de los mismos son algunos de los acuerdos genéricos alcanzados ayer por los líderes del G20 además de España, Holanda y la República Checa -añadidas bajo la bandera de la Unión Europea- en una cumbre celebrada en Washington que pretende conjurar la crisis financiera que azota al mundo desde hace un año y que amenaza con transformarse en una debacle económica a escala planetaria. Entre las medidas concretas decididas está la creación de un ‘colegio de supervisores’ que controlará los principales bancos del mundo y cuya lista deberá estar elaborada antes del final de marzo.

«Estamos decididos a mejorar nuestra cooperación y trabajar juntos para restaurar el crecimiento global y lograr las reformas que necesita el sistema financiero del mundo». Así comienza la declaración final suscrita ayer por los líderes de los países que generan el 90% del PIB mundial, en una ardiente defensa del capitalismo y el libre mercado, cuyos cimientos se han tambaleado con la crisis crediticia.

Lo conseguido ayer ha sobrepasado las esperanzas de algunos especialistas, que no confiaban en compromisos importantes ante el vacío de poder estadounidense. En cualquier caso, el texto supone una victoria personal para Bush, que ha logrado que el mundo rinda pleitesía a un sistema en crisis. La declaración advierte de que un sobreproteccionismo por exceso de regulación pondría en peligro al sistema que tan ardientemente defienden como el generador de la riqueza y la prosperidad mundial. «Subrayamos la importancia crítica de rechazar el proteccionismo y no volvernos hacia adentro en tiempos de incertidumbre financiera», dice el texto.

Estímulos fiscales

Los líderes analizan en el documento las raíces de la crisis, se congratulan por las medidas adoptadas de forma global para atajarla y se comprometen a favorecer el dinamismo económico, la creación de empleo, el crecimiento, la innovación y la reducción de la pobreza. Algo que pretenden lograr con estímulos fiscales a escala nacional, que España se ha comprometido a apoyar, además de reforzar el papel del Fondo Monetario Internacional y el Banco Mundial como instrumentos de rescate para los países en crisis.

El documento aboga porque todas esas medidas se pongan en marcha antes de que acabe el próximo mes de marzo de 2009, con el fin de que puedan ser evaluadas en una próxima cumbre, a celebrar antes del 30 de abril, en un lugar todavía sin determinar, y a la que ya asistirá el nuevo presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama.

La declaración atribuye a cada país la responsabilidad de fortalecer la regulación. Entre los objetivos de esa nueva política estarán la vigilancia de los fondos de alto riego (hedge funds) y de las firmas de calificación de riesgo, propuestas defendidas por los representantes europeos.

Principios básicos

La nueva era abierta ayer en el sistema financiero internacional, según el texto final de la cumbre, debe descansar sobre cinco principios: mayor transparencia contable, mejora de la regulación, promoción de la integración de los mercados, refuerzo de la cooperación global y reforma de las instituciones financieras.

También se apuesta por promover la integridad ética de los mercados financieros y proteger a los consumidores, evitando los conflictos de intereses y previniendo la manipulación ilegal, las actividades fraudulentas y los abusos.

En la declaración final, los mandatarios alzan la voz en contra del proteccionismo comercial, e instan a una conclusión de la Ronda de Doha, de la Organización Mundial de Comercio (OMC).

En Londres

Nicolas Sarkozy propuso que la próxima cumbre del G20 se celebre en Londres, con motivo de la presidencia de turno de Gran Bretaña de este grupo.

Ahora, «el G20 es visto como el organismo relevante» para hacer frente a los problemas que surgen a raíz de la crisis financiera, dijo el mandatario francés en el encuentro con la prensa, al que acudió acompañado del presidente de la Comisión Europea, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso.

El G20 está integrado por la Unión Europea (UE), el Grupo de los Siete (EE UU, Canadá, Japón, Alemania, Reino Unido, Italia y Francia) y Corea del Sur, Argentina, Australia, Brasil, China, India, Indonesia, México, Arabia Saudí, Sudáfrica, Turquía y Rusia.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘EL COMERCIO DIGITAL’ (Spain)

PENDIENTES DE WASHINGTON

16.11.2008

por Diego Carcedo – Analista Político

Hoy estaremos pendientes de Washington. Algunos seguro que intentarán frivolizar los aspectos sociales del cónclave que pretende salvarnos de la crisis económica en que estamos sumergidos. Aquí habrá mucha atención, qué duda más tonta cabe, por la presencia de Zapatero sentado en una silla prestada. Peleó por hacerse un sitio y lo ha logrado aunque en el intento haya dejado virutas de imagen y más sensación de capricho personal que de una defensa firme a la que estaba obligado de los derechos del peso de España. Nuestro país tiene que estar, con los números en la mano, en el Grupo de los Veinte y puesto que parece que el Grupo puede adquirir importancia real en los tiempos venideros, todos los esfuerzos que se hagan para hacerse un sitio permanente serán pocos. Mientras tanto, habrá que soportar la atención morbosa al trato que le dispense el anfitrión. Es una pena que se pierda tiempo en minucias de semejante naturaleza cuando a Bush sólo le quedan dos meses de Presidencia y deseemos que muchos años de vida para cargar con el peso de haberla desempeñado de manera tan desastrosa. Pero en fin… Lo que importa es lo que salga de la reunión y sobre eso sí que vamos a tener que debatirnos con dudas tan importantes como variadas. El comunicado final a buen seguro que eludirá el reconocimiento de fracaso si ese fuera el resultado y tratándose de asuntos tan sensibles, es más que probable que la información se diluya en lucubraciones diplomáticas que de entrada nos dejen sin saber exactamente qué ocurrió.

La reunión se celebra en fin de semana para evitar su incidencia directa en los mercados. Veinte jefes de Gobierno es muy difícil que se pongan de acuerdo en unas horas de discursos y sin posibilidades de debate abierto. Para que la reunión termine con resultados concretos, aplicables de inmediato, es imprescindible que lo fundamental haya sido cocinado de antemano por los expertos. El cónclave es de políticos, que en su mayor parte saben poco sobre los problemas de fondo, y por lo tanto el éxito está más en lo que sus expertos puedan idear y consensuar. En ello está el que la reunión responda a las expectativas que ha creado, quizás exageradas, y no concluya con un brindis al sol en el que cada cual vuelva a casa feliz con su intervención pero sin nada práctico qué decretar.

L a reunión no requiere retórica ni mejorará resultados a base de gestos y parafernalia. Necesita mucha inteligencia, capacidad de anticipación y realismo. Para empezar ha arrancado con actitudes verborréicas de corte esperpéntico, por respetables que sean sus autores, como la que anticipaba nada menos que la refundación del capitalismo, que sería bueno desterrar para evitar confundir y alejar susceptibilidades. El objetivo es doble: en primer lugar, poner en marcha medidas urgentes que frenen el agravamiento de la crisis y propicien la recuperación. Para eso es fundamental que su mensaje sea capaz de estimular la confianza, ahora mismo por los suelos, de banqueros, inversores y, por supuesto, de los ciudadanos de a pie cuya reacción está siendo de un pesimismo atroz.

Las cosas se han agravado y para devolver la confianza a los ciudadanos hay que ofrecerles información creíble. Enrevesadas argumentaciones de economía virtual y declaraciones rimbombantes de voluntad colectiva no adelantarán nada, quizás lo contrario. En segundo lugar, la reunión también deberá avanzar en el propósito de asimilar la lección proporcionada por el desastre y arbitrar fórmulas para frenar las tentaciones de los especuladores. Porque la solución de la crisis se enfanga mucho todavía en los intereses de los que la han originado.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘EL COMERCIO DIGITAL’ (Spain)

REFLEXIONES DEL COMPAÑERO FIDEL – LA REUNIÓN DE WASHINGTON (Cuba)

Sábado 15 Noviembre 2008

Fidel Castro Ruz

Noviembre 14 de 2008

5 y 35 p.m.

Algunos de los gobiernos que nos apoyan, a juzgar por declaraciones recientes, no dejan de incluir en las mismas que lo hacen para facilitar la transición en Cuba. ¿Transición hacia dónde? Hacia el capitalismo, único sistema en el que religiosamente creen. Ni una sola palabra expresan para reconocer el mérito de un pueblo que, sometido a casi medio siglo de crueles sanciones económicas y agresiones, defendió una causa revolucionaria que, unida a su moral y patriotismo, le dio fuerzas para resistir.

También olvidan que, después de las vidas ofrendadas y tanto sacrificio defendiendo la soberanía y la justicia, no se le puede ofrecer a Cuba en la otra orilla el capitalismo.

Le hacen guiños a Estados Unidos, soñando que los ayudará a resolver sus propios problemas económicos inyectándoles sumas fabulosas de monedas de papel a sus tambaleantes economías, que sostienen el intercambio desigual y abusivo con los países emergentes.

Sólo de esta forma pueden garantizarse las ganancias multimillonarias de Wall Street y los bancos de Estados Unidos. Los recursos naturales no renovables del planeta y la ecología ni siquiera se mencionan. No se demanda el cese de la carrera armamentista y la prohibición del uso posible y probable de armas de exterminio masivo.

Ninguno de los que participarán en la reunión, convocada precipitadamente por el actual Presidente de Estados Unidos, ha dicho una palabra sobre la ausencia de más de 150 Estados con iguales o peores problemas, que no tendrán derecho a decir una palabra sobre el orden financiero internacional, como propuso el Presidente pro tempore de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, Miguel D’Escoto, entre ellos la mayor parte de los países de América Latina, el Caribe, África, Asia y Oceanía.

Mañana se inicia la reunión del G-20 en Washington. Bush está de plácemes. Proclama que de la reunión espera un nuevo orden financiero internacional. Las instituciones creadas por Bretton Woods deben ser más transparentes, responsables y efectivas. Es lo único que admitiría. Para señalar la prosperidad de Cuba en el pasado, habló de que una vez estuvo sembrada de campos de caña de azúcar. No dijo, por cierto, que se cortaba a mano y el imperio nos arrebató la cuota establecida durante más de medio siglo, cuando la palabra socialismo no se había pronunciado todavía en nuestro país, aunque sí las de ¡Patria o Muerte!

Muchos sueñan que, con un simple cambio de mando en la jefatura del imperio, este sería más tolerante y menos belicoso. El desprecio por su actual gobernante conduce a ilusiones del probable cambio del sistema.

No se conoce todavía el pensamiento más íntimo del ciudadano que tomará el timón sobre el tema. Sería sumamente ingenuo creer que las buenas intenciones de una persona inteligente podrían cambiar lo que siglos de intereses y egoísmo han creado. La historia humana demuestra otra cosa.

Observemos con atención lo que dice cada cual en esa importante reunión financiera. Las noticias lloverán. Estaremos todos un poco mejor informados.

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PUBLISHED BY ‘VICTORIA’ (Cuba)

HARPER CALLS FOR GLOBAL SCRUTINY OF COUNTRIES’ BANKING SYSTEMS (Canada)

November 14, 2008 at 2:51 PM EST

by Steven Chase

Globe and Mail Update

WINNIPEG — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he wants countries such as the United States to agree to subject their financial systems to “peer review” by other countries – comments made as he heads to a key economic summit on tackling a global crisis triggered by an American banking and lending meltdown.

“I do think it’s incumbent on the United States and others – that as they make regulatory reforms – that we allow peer review mechanisms,” Mr. Harper told reporters in Winnipeg before leaving for the Group of 20 meetings in Washington, D.C.

“[There must be] allow accountable and transparent international peer review mechanisms of our financial systems: to give us evaluations and suggestions. Not to impose solutions – we want to respect national sovereignty – but that we get good objective evaluations that we are able to act on.”

He said however he remains opposed to any push for global governance of financial systems and believes those won’t gain traction in Washington.

“Our position is [not] one model of compulsory global governance that I think is unrealistic and will never be accepted. But I think on the other hand if we’re going to work on this together, there has be some willingness to be transparent and open to peer review,” Mr. Harper said.

The Prime Minister noted that Canada has previously submitted to international reviews of its financial system and it has been helpful. Canada, he noted, has been praised by the International Monetary Fund as having the soundest financial system in the world right now.

“We have received comments [from past reviews]. Those comments and criticisms have been helpful in making reforms. And we think that’s a reasonable part of being part of a integrated global financial market.”

Mr. Harper said that Canada does not agree with the two extremes of debate heading into the G20 meetings.

He said some countries are isolationist on reforms and believe they “should strictly keep their own house in order and that’s really their own national business” while others “are seeking wide ranging global governance of financial markets” to come from the meetings.

“I believe the government of Canada’s position is in neither of these camps. We actually believe that neither of these positions is feasible and realistic,” he said.

“First of all I don’t think the major economies of the world will obviously consent to have external control over their regulatory systems. But at the same time I think we do need – to the extent we have global capital flows – we do need something where all of us can give each other a significant reassurance about the nature of our system.”

Mr. Harper said he hopes the G20 meeting doesn’t get bogged down in a debate about how to restructure international organizations amid calls from some developing countries – also referred to as emerging market economies – for permanent seats at the table.

He said Canada’s open to giving emerging market economies more of a voice but said it’s a long-term discussion.

“What I hope though is that … we don’t get too lost in them at the meeting,” he said.

“I think quite frankly if we went to this meeting and ended up discussing – our discussions being dominated – by international economic institutional architecture, that would be equivalent to me meeting with the premiers last week and discussing the constitution as a solution to the economic problems.”

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CHINA SAYS IT MIGHT WORK WITH IMF ON GLOBAL CRISIS

Published: Nov 14, 2008 12:31 AM – Modified: Nov 14, 2008 04:52 AM

by Joe McDonald – AP Business Writer

BEIJING – China said Friday it could work with the International Monetary Fund to help countries hurt by the global financial crisis, suggesting it might heed appeals to contribute to a bailout fund.

As President Hu Jintao prepared for a Washington meeting of leaders to discuss a response to the crisis, Vice Finance Minister Yi Gang sounded constructive, saying China was prepared to work with other countries. But at the same time, Yi reiterated that the most important step Beijing can take will be to keep its own economy stable.

“We are positively taking part in rescue actions for this international financial crisis,” Yi said at a news conference. “There are many ways to do this. We can do it bilaterally, such as currency swaps. And we can do it multilaterally, such as taking part in activities on the platform of the IMF.”

Hu is expected to come under pressure at the weekend meeting to use China’s $2 trillion in reserves to help expand an IMF stability fund. Beijing has yet to respond directly to such suggestions but says Hu will press Western leaders to give developing countries a bigger role in such global financial institutions, a measure that analysts say might be a condition for a Chinese contribution.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said Friday that Japan is ready to lend up to $100 billion to the IMF to support nations reeling from the global financial crisis. The IMF has dipped into its reserves fund to provide emergency loans to Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine worth more than $30 billion.

Yi repeated Beijing’s insistence that keeping its economy growing will be an important contribution to global stability. China announced a nearly $600 billion package on Sunday to boost economic growth through higher spending on construction and social programs.

“We have worked to stabilize the growth of China’s economy. We believe this will be our biggest contribution to the international response to the financial crisis,” Yi said.

Also Friday, another official said weakness in China’s economy is worsening and the government faces a severe challenge as it tries to avert a sharp downturn.

“The downturn trend in our economy is more obvious, especially since September. We hope a rapid downturn in growth will not occur,” Mu Hong, a deputy chairman of the nation’s main planning agency, said at the news conference with Yi.

Mu expressed confidence the stimulus package would help the country weather the global downturn. But he said, “This international financial crisis is a new challenge for us. It is a severe challenge.”

Beijing is moving quickly to launch the package and will distribute most of a planned 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in additional government spending within the next two weeks, Mu said. He said the money will be spent on housing, rural development, highways, public health and environmental protection.

The government says the total stimulus – which also calls for higher investment by state companies – will be worth 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) over the next two years.

China’s economic growth fell to 9 percent in the latest quarter after a stunning 11.9 percent expansion last year. Exporters say foreign customers are canceling orders, which has led to layoffs and factory closures.

Mu blamed the weakness on the global downturn. But data released Friday showed domestic investment – a key force driving China’s rapid expansion – is also cooling as companies cut back or put off spending on real estate, factories and other assets.

Investment in assets grew by 27.2 percent in the first 10 months of this year over the same period of 2007, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. That was down from the 27.6 percent growth reported for the first nine months of the year. Such investment is estimated to account for one-third of China’s economic growth.

“China’s pace of economic growth will reflect the extent to which accelerated infrastructure spending will be able to offset a slowdown in the property and manufacturing sectors,” said a report by Jing Ulrich, JP Morgan Chase & Co.’s chairwoman for China equities.

“Further fiscal and monetary easing may be called for as growth moderates,” Ulrich said.

© Copyright 2008, The News & Observer Publishing Company

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WORLD LEADERS MEET TO CRAFT SOLUTIONS TO FINANCIAL CRISIS – G20

Saturday, November 15, 2008

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (AFP) – More than 20 leaders from the world’s richest nations and emerging economic powers meet on Friday for a summit amid mounting divisions on how to tackle the global financial crisis.

While US President George W. Bush has made an impassioned defense of the free market system, critics in the rest of the world headed for Washington seeking strengthened regulation of the financial system.

The summit starts late Friday with a working dinner at the White House to set underway discussions on how to stop the crisis turning into a prolonged world recession. The formal talks will be held Saturday.

Bush said Thursday that the world leaders have a clear aim ‘’to address the current crisis, and to lay the foundation for reforms that will help prevent a similar crisis in the future.’’

The G20 summit will also likely discuss coordinated efforts to revive the global economy, after China unveiled a four trillion yuan (6 billion) economic stimulus plan.

Created in 1999, the Group of 20 countries account for 85 percent of the world economy and about two-thirds of its population.

Its members are the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Britain and Canada, the European Union, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.

“We cannot expect a miracle from this summit, which was Europe’s idea, but will rather see the beginning of a process that will create a finished programme in 100 days,’’ European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said an interview with a German daily published Friday.

Bush but sternly warned against imposing widespread regulation.

“The crisis was not a failure of the free market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system,’’ Bush said in a speech laying out his agenda for the expanded Group of 20 summit.

“Our aim should not be more government. It should be smarter government,’’ he said. It would be ‘’a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success.’’

“Many European countries had much more extensive regulations and still experienced problems almost identical to our own,’’ he said. ‘’We must recognize that government intervention is not a cure-all.’’

Bush faces mounting pressure from the European Union, Russia and other emerging nations for increased control of financial markets.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said Thursday: ‘’I leave for Washington tomorrow to explain that the dollar, which at the end of World War II was the only world currency, can no longer claim to be the sole world currency.’’

“The world changes. We are in the 21st century and the French view is that we cannot continue into the 21st century with a system (established) in the 20th century,’’ he said.

The crisis broke out one year ago when the US real estate market went bust and swamped the financial sector with subprime mortgages turned sour.

Stock markets have crashed and companies around the world are now laying off hundreds of thousands of workers.

Bush outlined some issues he wants considered at the summit, such as improving bank risk management practices, improving accounting rules for securities so that their ‘’true value’’ is clear, and harmonizing accounting laws among nation