Major pain for world economy if G20 reforms not adopted: Bank of Canada

By Lidia Kelly

By Wayne Cole and Jane Wa

By Simon Johnson The April 2009 London summit of the G20 is widely regarded as having been a great success.  The world’s largest economies agreed on an immediate coordinated approach to the global financial crisis then raging and promised to work together on banking reforms that would support growth.  At the time, President Obama got high marks for his constructive engagement.

Group of 20 nations will affirm a commitment to avoid weakening their currencies to gain a trade advantage, according to a draft statement prepared for a meeting this week in Washington, Bloomberg BNA reported. The statement, seen by a Bloomberg BNA reporter, maintains a February pledge to “move more rapidly toward more market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange-rate flexibility” and to refrain from competitive devaluations. Meetings of finance ministers and central bankers start Thursday.

MELBOURNE — Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has not yet decided whether to run for office again in the 2015 general election, he told Reuters on Tuesday, amid speculation he may step down before then to attend to health issues. “We’ll see. I haven’t decided,” Flaherty said in an interview when asked to confirm his intentions. He answered “yes” at a Nov. 13 news conference when asked whether he would run for re-election in October 2015 in the southern Ontario district he represents.

Apparently all it takes to kick the world out of a secular recession and back into growth mode, is for several dozen finance ministers and central bankers to sit down and sign on the dotted line, agreeing it has to be done. That is the take home message from the just concluded latest G-20 meeting in Syndey, where said leaders agreed that it is time to finally grow the world economy by 2% over the next 5 years.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no currency war and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets, underlining broad concern about the fragile state of the world economy.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s criticism of U.S. monetary policy, which he ramped up last week in Washington, may be putting him at odds with the Bank of Canada and the Group of 20. Flaherty said he criticized the Federal Reserve’s use of unconventional monetary policy known as quantitative easing at a private dinner of G20 officials on Oct. 10, with U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke in attendance.