STEFAN J. BOS reports on the outcome of the G20’s London Summit …
World leaders meeting in London have pledged $US1.1 trillion to global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund to combat the global economic crisis, prompting investors to buy up stocks while the Dow Industrials in New York surged over 8,000 for the first time in two months.
United States President Barack Obama said the measures announced on 2nd April at the just-completed Group of 20 nations summit, which was held amid deadly protests, would be a “turning point” in worldwide economic recovery. He stressed leaders were able to overcome “honest disagreements” and reach agreements to “boost” economic growth, job creation, and lending to troubled nations.
WORLD FINANCIAL REFORM: The G20 are proposing a raft of measures to help troubled nations and redress problems within the world’s economic system. PICTURE: Sanjo Gjenero (www.sxc.hu)
“The G20 leaders pledged to keep closer watch over banks, hedge funds, credit rating agencies, and executive pay, after excesses by financial firms played a role in the economic crisis. They also promised to take action against countries that provide tax havens for the wealthy and to set up an international watchdog group to warn of problems in the global financial system.”
France President Nicolas Sarkozy had threatened to walk out if the London conference would fail to produce a hard global rulebook on capitalism. He eventually decided to stay, after Britain the United States and others agreed on more oversight.
The G20 leaders pledged to keep closer watch over banks, hedge funds, credit rating agencies, and executive pay, after excesses by financial firms played a role in the economic crisis. They also promised to take action against countries that provide tax havens for the wealthy and to set up an international watchdog group to warn of problems in the global financial system.
And, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the G20 will make over $US1 trillion available to the IMF to boost the international economy and help developing countries.
The G20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Britain, the United States and the European Union.
The announcement wasn’t welcomed by demonstrators protesting capitalism, who earlier attacked banks amid reports that one man was found dead after collapsing at a protest camp near the Bank of England. Police told reporters that bottles were thrown at them while they attempted to treat him. He was later pronounced dead after being taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
Police also vowed to track down and prosecute those who attacked officers and stormed a bank during a day of unrest in the City of London, where riot police had to be sent in after activists broke into a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland on1st April.
A handful of people with black scarves obscuring their faces and hoods over their heads smashed a hole in the windows with a metal pole and crawled in, television footage showed.
However investors in New York were more positive, buying stocks with renewed commitment, said Eric Ross, director of research at brokerage Canaccord Adams, and world market indicators soared more than three percent. “Everyone is in a buying mood. Everyone is feeling good…A lot of this is simply confidence,” he told The Associated Press news agency.
In addition, a Commerce Department report claimed orders to factories improved in February for the first time in seven months.
But analysts cautioned that the number of Americans seeking jobless benefits last week climbed to the highest level in 26 years, providing a reminder that unemployment will keep mounting long after the economy stabilizes.
Initial jobless claims swelled by 12,000 to 669,000 in the week ended 28th March, the most since 1982, the Labor Department said in a statement published by Bloomberg news agency in Washington on 2nd April.
You can read the full text of the London Summit issued on 2nd April here…
