US to delay China currency report

© AFP/File

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Treasury Department on Friday said it would delay a report that could label China a currency manipulator until at least May, after a series of top level meetings.

The semi-annual report, which was next due on April 15, has become a focal point for critics who accuse Beijing of unfairly keeping the yuan weak against the dollar to boost Chinese exports.

The US government said it would wait until a meeting of the G20 finance ministers and the IMF's annual spring meetings this month and a bilateral meeting in May before publishing the document.

The last report -- which also deals with the currency policies of other trade partners -- was published in February, after a delay of four months.

The report stopped short of labeling China a manipulator, a move which could have resulted in punitive sanctions on Chinese trade.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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US, France call for flexible exchange rates at G20

G20 seeking monetary reform
© AFP/File Karen Bleier

AFP

NANJING, China (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday called for more flexible exchange rate regimes as G20 nations met on global monetary reform in China.

The pair, speaking at the start of a day of talks in the eastern city of Nanjing, also called for a widening of the basket of currencies underlying the IMF's international reserve asset, while keeping the dollar and euro stable.

The West wants to see the yuan become part of the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket as part of its efforts to prod Beijing into opening up its tightly managed and controversial currency regime.

"It's clear we must move towards a more flexible exchange rate system that would allow the world to absorb shocks. But this system cannot evolve without rules, coordination and oversight, or instability will prevail," Sarkozy said.

US Treasury's Geithner to visit China March 31

Editor's Note: Finalizing plans for a global currency perhaps?  

US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner
© AFP/Getty Images/File Alex Wong

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit China next week, joining a group of G20 officials to discuss the global monetary system, the Treasury said Friday.

Geithner will attend finance ministers, central bankers and other officials from the Group of 20 in the eastern city of Nanjing, as debate rages about global economic imbalances, caused in part by China's rise.

The group will "discuss reforms to the international monetary system and the importance of the G20 maintaining its focus on supporting a sustainable global recovery," the Treasury said.

Canadian G20 Cops Cleared of Brutality Charges Because They Couldn't be Identified

Image: Richard Lautens/Toronto Star

Jayme Poisson
The Star

Brendan Latimer was knocked down by a herd of fellow protesters during a G20 demonstration at Queen’s Park.

Lying on the ground, police moved in and arrested the delivery worker. That’s when one of the officers allegedly struck him in the face, causing a fracture.

The 19-year-old’s case is one of six from the June G20 summit that has been probed by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit.

On Thursday, the agency announced no charges will be laid against police officers for injuries to civilians during the G20 protests.

n Latimer’s case, the agency interviewed nine witness officers from the Toronto Police Services as well a civilians. SIU director Ian Scott concluded that while there was “reasonable ground” to believe excessive force was used, they were unable to tell which officer caused his injuries.

“I’m let down, I’m very frustrated,” said Latimer, who says he also suffered two broken ribs and a deep cut to his head.

“They spent all this money installing cameras and surveillance devices . . . I’m enraged that they could use that stuff to catch protesters but not to catch police.

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Red alert over bizarre North Korean plan to attack G20 summit with chemical weapon balloons

James Chapman
Daily Mail

A bizarre plot by North Korea to attack the G20 summit using balloons filled with biological or chemical weapons emerged last night.

The claim that ageing tyrant Kim Jong-Il will attempt to disrupt the gathering – attended by David Cameron and other world leaders – has been taken seriously by Western diplomats.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked China, North Korea’s chief ally, to rein in Kim. And security is now at red alert for the conference in the South Korean capital Seoul.

Kim Jong-Un, Kim’s third son and expected successor, is thought to have been ordered to find ways to overshadow the meeting.

His father’s secretive regime has acted aggressively in the past at times of internal change, external tension or when the rival South is the focus of world attention.

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Pessimism pervades as G20 leaders show sharp split

Jean H. Lee
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — A strong sense of pessimism shrouded the start of an economic summit of rich and emerging economies Thursday, with President Barack Obama and fellow world leaders arriving in Seoul sharply divided over currency and trade policies.

The Group of 20 summit, held for the first time in Asia, has become the centerpiece of international efforts to revive the global economy and prevent future financial meltdowns.

Hopes had been high that the Group of 20 – encompassing rich nations such as Germany and the U.S. as well as growing giants such as China and Brazil – could be the world forum for hashing out an economic way forward from financial crisis.


But agreement appeared elusive as the summit began, divided between those such as United States that want to get China to allow its currency rise and those irate over U.S. Federal Reserve plans to pump $600 billion of new money into the sluggish American economy, effectively devaluing the dollar.

Obama told fellow leaders that the U.S. cannot remain a profligate consumer using borrowed money and needs other countries to pull their weight to fix the world economy.

"The most important thing that the United States can do for the world economy is to grow, because we continue to be the world's largest market and a huge engine for all other countries to grow," Obama said at a news conference.

Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, warned that such policies would "bankrupt" the world.

"If the rich countries are not consuming and want to grow its economy on exports, the world goes bankrupt because there would be no one to buy," he told reporters. "Everybody would like to sell."

Concerns about trade gaps, protectionism and a currency war threatened to overtake momentum for forming global solutions to the financial crisis created at last year's London summit.

So far, officials can't even agree on the agenda, much less a draft statement. Government ministers and senior G-20 officials have labored for days without success to come up with a substantive joint statement to be issued Friday, G-20 summit spokesman Kim Yoon-kyung said.

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China says G20 should monitor US Fed

Editor's Note: China wants the G20 to have the authority to "monitor" the Fed.  Since the Fed has battled an audit by our own Congress it's doubtful it will happen, but it will be interesting to see if they concede any ground to accommodate global monetary cooperation.

AFP

China's state media has issued a new broadside at the US Federal Reserve's move to prime the US economy, suggesting the Group of 20 should monitor policy shifts by the US central bank.

The Xinhua news agency said in a commentary the Fed was "risking the global recovery by following its own track for economic revival" by spending an extra $US600 billion ($A593.65 billion) buying Treasury bonds to stimulate the US economy.

The comments were published just days ahead of two key summits this week - the G20 meeting in Seoul and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Yokohama, Japan - that are expected to focus on rebalancing global trade.

"There is an urgent need for the G20 ... to set up a new mechanism that effectively monitors the issuer of the international reserve currency, especially when it is not able to carry out responsible currency policies," Xinhua said.

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IMF Head Says Officials at G20 Agreed on "Biggest Reform Ever"

Rebecca Christie and Rainer Buergin
Bloomberg

Group of 20 nations agreed on an overhaul of the International Monetary Fund that gives a larger voice to emerging market nations, IMF Managing DirectorDominique Strauss-Kahn said.

More than 6 percent of voting rights will be reallocated to underrepresented emerging-market nations and Europe will give up two board seats in the “biggest reform ever in the governance of the institution,” Strauss-Kahn told reporters today in Gyeongju, South Korea. The G-20 also agreed on the structure for a “financial safety net” to stop nascent financial crises before they speed out of control, he said.

The IMF’s board may approve the package in the first week in November, and it will probably take a year for the changes to be put in place, Strauss-Kahn said. The package includes a shift in the composition of the IMF’s executive board and the fund’s 10 biggest shareholders.

Strauss-Kahn called the deal a “historical agreement” as the Washington-based lender takes on a larger role in monitoring the world’s economies, currencies and capital flows. South Korea, the host of this weekend’s meeting of G-20 financial chiefs, proposed the safety net.

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G20 struggles to find common ground on currency war, triggers US push for trade caps

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations struggled to agree on how to prevent a currency war on Friday, with the United States switching tack to focus on a way to rebalance global trade.

G20 Finance Meeting - EPA Photo

Malcom Moore
Telegraph

With China resolutely refusing to allow the yuan to rise more quickly, the US shifted the debate on the first day of the G20 summit to address trade imbalances, the root issue behind exchange rate clashes.

Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, told G20 members they should commit to specific trade caps, allowing surpluses and deficits on their current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, to be no more than 4pc of gross domestic product.


China's current account surplus was 5.9pc in 2009, having almost halved from its peak of 10.6pc in 2007. The US, by contrast, had a current account deficit of 3pc last year.  In a letter to the G20, Mr Geithner called for a "co-operative effort" on the issue, but said there would have to be "some exceptions" for countries that imported large quantities of raw materials.

The US plan, a way of side-stepping a direct spat over currencies, was backed by Korea, Australia and Canada, but immediately opposed by large exporters such as Japan and Germany.

Rainer Bruederle, the German finance minister, rejected a "command economy" approach, while Yoshihiko Noda of Japan said "setting numerical targets would be unrealistic".

India also said the trade caps would be hard to work out, while Russia said there would be no numerical limits set in the summit's final statement.

Mr Geithner also called for G20 countries to refrain from "either weakening their currency or preventing the appreciation of an undervalued currency". Mr Geithner, who also called for the IMF to monitor the G20's commitments, added: "G20 advanced countries will work to ensure against excessive volatility and disorderly movement in exchange rates."

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IMF chief warns recovery 'in peril'

AFP

The head of the IMF on Monday warned central bankers that the global recovery would be “in peril” if the world’s major economies do not keep working together, amid mounting fears of a currency war.

The comments from International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn came at the end of a meeting in Shanghai that brought together high-level officials from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North and South America.

The Shanghai conference follows IMF and World Bank annual meetings earlier this month, where finance officials discussed how to strengthen the recovery from the worst recession since World War II and the global financial system.

It also comes ahead of this week’s key Group of 20 meeting in South Korea, where currency reform is expected to dominate talks, amid fears that nations could adopt trade barriers in the face of competition from Asian exports.

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