Major economies pledge support for regime changes

[April 15, 2011]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The world's major economies are pledging to provide support for the regime changes that are occurring in the Middle East and North Africa. An Obama administration official is comparing what is occurring now to the fall of the Berlin Wall more than two decades ago.

The United States and France issued a joint statement after talks on Thursday saying major nations stood ready with international lending institutions to provide economic support for the new governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Lael Brainard wrote in an opinion piece that the transformations that were occurring in the region could be as successful in unlocking economic prosperity as events after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said in their statement summarizing the talks that the group would put together a joint action plan with early recommendations coming in May to support "inclusive and sustained growth, transparency and improved governance."

Brainard wrote in an article for Foreign Policy magazine's website that "across the Middle East and North Africa, unprecedented upheavals are creating historic opportunities to expand the circle of democratic societies."

Brainard cautioned that the reforms and efforts to provide greater economic growth for the region's young people would take a number of years, with many challenges ahead. "We must be prepared to work through the setbacks and scale up successes," she wrote.

The discussions on the Middle East occurred at the start of three days of finance talks designed to deal with various challenges facing the global economy, from soaring food and energy prices to continued tensions between the United States and China, the world's two largest economies, over currencies and trade.

The United States was being represented at the talks by Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The discussions Friday were taking place among the Group of 20, which includes traditional economic powers such as the United States and European nations and major developing powers such as Brazil, China and India.

Lagarde was leading the talks because France is this year's head of the G-20, the group that since the financial crisis in 2008 has become the major steering body for the global economy.

The G-20 talks were scheduled to conclude Friday afternoon with a joint statement of goals and news conferences by Lagarde and other finance officials.

The finance talks will wrap up on Saturday with meetings of the policy-setting panels of the 187-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Thursday that a major goal for his institution will be to win support from the rich countries for more assistance to poor nations that are facing food crises. A 36 percent surge in food prices over the past year has pushed an additional 44 million people into poverty.

"We have to put food first and protect the poor and vulnerable, who spend most of their money on food," Zoellick told reporters Thursday.

The G-20 talks will be focused on making more progress on a set of economic indicators that the group can use to gauge whether countries are pursuing the correct policies to prevent the growth of dangerous imbalances in trade and government debt, which contributed to the last financial crisis.

The United States is pushing for the indicators to be set up, hoping they can be used to bring more pressure on China to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar as a way to narrow the huge trade gap that exists between China and the U.S.

However, Chinese officials do not want the rebalancing process to be used as a way to attack China's currency policies, and it was unclear whether any progress will be made during the Washington talks.

"There are lots of things to worry about, and we want to make sure we don't fall back into another crisis as we did not that long ago," Canadian Finance Minister James Flaherty told reporters.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that while the global economy began growing again last year after the most severe downturn since World War II, there still were multiple risks to the recovery.

"The recovery is getting stronger but ... it is not the recovery we want because it is still imbalanced," Strauss-Kahn said. "We must be aware of complacency, and we need urgent action."

[Associated Press; By MARTIN CRUTSINGER]

Associated Press writer Harry Dunphy contributed to this report.

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