World leaders meeting in Washington on Sunday may agree to shore up the deteriorating global economy, while papering over differences on additional regulation of financial markets.
Members of the Group of 20 will likely endorse steps already under way to alleviate the global recession, including an increase in government spending and extra cash for the International Monetary Fund(IMF), economists said.
They will hide disagreements between US and European governments over the future shape of the international financial system by committing to further discussions after President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.
“It’s difficult to imagine the heads of state getting together on the worst financial crisis since the Depression and announcing only baby steps,” said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist for Miller Tabak & Co in New York. “The G-20 will almost certainly want to give the impression that broad and coordinated actions will be taken to combat the financial crisis.”
Tumbling stock markets and forecasts for global recession are putting pressure on the G-20 leaders, who last night met for a dinner of quail, roast lamb and pear torte at the White House. They will release a statement after further talks on Sunday.
A Recession: Statistics released on Saturday showed the euro area entered a recession in the third quarter for the first time since the single currency was introduced a decade ago, and retail sales in the US fell by the most on record in October. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 38 points on Saturday to close at 873, a loss of 6 per cent for the week and 41 per cent for the year so far.
“We share a determination to fix the problems that led to this turmoil,” President George W Bush said in a toast at last night’s dinner. “We share a conviction that by working together, we can restore the global economy to the path of long-term prosperity.”
Their first step is raising government spending to boost growth as the credit crunch delays the effect of recent interest rate cuts. G-20 countries including the UK, Japan, China and Germany are rolling out stimulus packages. Democratic lawmakers in the US are signaling they will enact a second round of stimulus legislation.
“We have reached the stage where monetary policy must be accompanied by fiscal policy,” UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday in New York.
Several other initiatives, in the works for some time, were announced on the eve of the summit.
The first central clearinghouse for the $33 trillion credit- default swap market should be in operation by year-end in the US, under an agreement signed on Saturday by three US financial regulators.
Regulators’ Agreement: The Federal Reserve, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to provide consistent oversight of credit-default swaps, which are unregulated contracts that are traded privately.
The clearinghouse would back trades and absorb losses in case of a dealer failure. Some in Europe have been pushing for a clearinghouse under government control, or within the IMF. Investors, supported by the Fed, want it to be independent. The New York Fed has been meeting with groups including CME Group Inc, Intercontinental Exchange Inc and NYSE Euronext on plans to create a privately run organisation.
The IMF will have a role, along with the Financial Stability Forum in conducting “early warning exercises” and issuing joint risk assessments of financial markets, the two organisations said on Saturday. The FSF includes officials from the Group of Seven nations along with Australia, Singapore, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Aso’s Offer
Separately, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s office said his government will offer up to $100 billion in lending to the IMF at the summit and ask other nations to give further resources.
The leaders are also likely to agree on the need for improving oversight of banks whose operations, and problems, cross national borders. The so-called Basel accords, developed in 1988 and 2004 to create international standards for regulation, risk management and disclosure, failed to prevent the current crisis.
European Union nations, led by the UK’s Brown, want the world’s top 30 banks to be placed under the supervision of a panel of regulators.
At a November 7 meeting in Brussels, EU leaders called for the creation of regulatory “colleges” that would bring together bank regulators from various nations to coordinate oversight.
How Much Power: Still to be discussed is how much, if any, power those colleges might have. The US, under Bush, has rejected international supervision of its banks. Some European governments, particularly in smaller and Eastern European nations, also don’t want to cede oversight of their own banks and insurers to authorities in financial centers such as London, Paris and Frankfurt.
Also likely to be left for another day will be European calls for more international market regulation, with curbs on executive pay and hedge funds. Bush argues in his weekly radio address today that government intervention in markets is not a “cure-all.”
There may also be cracks emerging in Europe’s position. German Chancellor Angela Merkel favors a more gradual strengthening of regulators and existing rules rather than the sweeping revamp of controls favored by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to a German government document obtained by Bloomberg News.
Improving the Tools: It states that governments should forego setting up a new “architecture” to control in favor of improving the tools of existing institutions to stave off crises. Still, Merkel said on Saturday that she’ll do “everything to ensure that there are more rules to prevent us from ever having to face such a situation again.”
The leaders have already signalled they plan to hold additional meetings after Obama takes office. The president-elect won’t attend this week’s meeting, sending former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Republican Representative Jim Leach instead.
G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the US, the UK and the European Union.
The Netherlands and Spain are also be represented, as are the IMF, World Bank, and United Nations.
