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Finance ministers see strong global economic growth
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-25 17:15
The world is poised for strong economic growth this year and next, the
world's major industrial nations concluded at a weekend meeting, even though
there are concerns about high oil prices and continuing unrest in the Middle
East.
Finance ministers and central bankers were wrapping up three days of talks
Sunday with a meeting of the World Bank's policy-setting committee on how to
help developing countries improve living standards for poor people.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn said there is a reasonable chance the
international community will achieve the first of a series of ambitious
objectives, halving global poverty by 2015, ``but that's because of the
remarkable progress in India and China,'' whose economies have been soaring.
But he and other officials said the other U.N. millennium development goals
in such areas as education, health and other fields agreed on four years ago
will not be met.
Critics of the 184-nation World Bank and its sister institution, the
International Monetary Fund, such as Oxfam, the international relief agency, say
rich countries are failing the poor. It has urged these countries to urgently
increase debt relief and boost aid funding so developing countries can reach the
millennium objectives.
``The United States, Italy and Japan are the key culprits in failing to
provide their share of the money needed to reach the millennium goals,'' said
Max Lawson, an Oxfam spokesman.
To have a reasonable chance of reaching the millennium goals, experts
estimate that foreign aid to developing countries, currently running at $50
billion a year, needs to be increased to $100 billion.
A peaceful crowd of about 1,000 anti-globalization demonstrators marched
through 15 blocks of downtown Washington on Saturday to protest the policies of
the World Bank and the IMF, which they say favor wealthy nations at the expense
of the world's poorest countries.
This year's meetings were being held against the backdrop of a global economy
that the IMF is forecasting will grow at a 4.6 percent clip this year and 4.4
percent next year, the fastest back-to-back growth years in a decade.
However, the IMF also cautioned that this bright prospect could be derailed
if oil prices go up more or if the unstable security situation in the Middle
East begins to weaken consumer and business confidence and rattle global
financial markets.
At their meeting on Saturday, members of the Group of Seven major industrial
countries pledged economic support to rebuild the war-ravaged economies of Iraq
and Afghanistan and the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza.
The G-7 nations _ the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy
and Canada _ struck an optimistic tone in a joint communique issued as part of a
weekend of financial discussions centered around the spring meetings of the
World Bank and IMF.
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, who led the discussions along with Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, said there was a feeling of shared optimism in
the group, reflecting a belief that strong growth in the United States, powered
by tax cuts, as helping to boost the global economy.
In their communique, the G-7 ministers said that prospects for the global
economy were favorable. ``Although risks remain, such as energy prices, overall
the balance of risks to the outlook has improved,'' it said.
Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central
Bank, said he had pushed to include a reference to the threat of higher energy
prices as a way for the G-7 to take a ``high level of responsibility'' for
trying to restrain those increases.
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