Russia outlines its agenda for the upcoming London’s April G20 Summit
MOSCOW, Russia - Speaking in an interview aired by the First Channel TV over the weekend, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev named urgent stabilization of the global financial markets and the adoption of really effective measures aimed at creating a totally new architecture of the post-crisis global economy among the priority issues that Russia will push on the agenda at the summit of the leaders of the world’s largest 20 economies slated for April 2 in London.
The Kremlin, according to the Russian president, is proposing the creation of a new and more equitable structure for the international financial system, and this will require the G20 leaders to establish a new architecture that is most appropriate for the 21st century, rather than merely reproducing the post-WW2 economic model for modern times at the summit. “Today, all the international financial organizations require urgent reforms. And, in doing so, we will have to change a number of key things, including the work of international financial organizations, as the current crisis has shown that their activities are far from ideal.”
Specifically, this radical overhaul, first and foremost, refers to activities of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other global financial structures, the president said. “Therefore, it is vital to streamline the activities and functions of these organizations in such a way as make them fairer to countries that have recently emerged as major economic powers as well as the developing economies.”
Another important issue on the Russian agenda for the G20 Summit is the establishment of a stricter control and more effective monitoring of the macroeconomic indicators of big countries, whose economies have the largest impacts on the situations on the global financial markets. “This is very important in ensuring that problems in economy do not create severe negative domino effects that can undermine the entire global economy,” the president added. “In this respect, we need such mechanisms that will allow us to have at least some influence on the decisions of our partners, on the other hand, to protect ourselves from this kind of knock-on effect, on the other.”
In a related development, a more detailed version of the plans on the proposed reformation of the world economy and its derivative global financial institutions, which were partly aired during the interview, has been placed on the official Kremlin site. Particularly, the Russian government is calling for the introduction of a ‘supra-national reserve currency’ to be issued by international financial institutions. Also, the Kremlin wants the G20 to deliberate on the issue of diversification of the list of currencies currently used as reserve ones, based on agreed measures to promote the development of major regional financial centers. “In this context, we should consider possible establishment of specific regional mechanisms which would contribute to reducing volatility of exchange rates of such reserve currencies.”
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