Comments from Italy G8 finance ministers' meeting

LECCE, Italy (Reuters) - Following are comments from policymakers at a meeting of Group of Eight finance ministers in southern Italy on Friday and Saturday.

IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN

On dollar:

"I don't see the dollar as being weak, I think the dollar has been today correctly valued by the market.

"We see a dollar which today is stronger than one year ago....so I don't see today a weak dollar and I don't forecast that we would have to expect many changes in the coming time."

On economy:

"We have to stay very careful. The recovery is weak. Many actions still need to be taken. The social costs will continue."

"Even if the green shoots are real, growth as an average will only come back at the beginning of 2010 which means an unemployment peak at the beginning of 2011."

"When you look at the bank spreads they are still very high indicating that the stress on the financial sector is still important."

"I think it is a good news that we had to revise our (2010 growth) forecast upward. But please please don't overestimate the change, the risks are still very big."

"The idea that the crisis may be behind us is much to early at the same time of course we have to think about the exit strategy."

ITALIAN ECONOMY MINISTER GIULIO TREMONTI ON STRESS TESTS

"In Europe we haven't started to talk together about stress tests either national or European, secret or public."

"In Europe there is a national but standardized system (of stress tests) applied so far in Italy, for example, with positive results."

ON SPECULATION:

"Speculation is coming back, a certain type of finance is raising its head again and doing the same not very nice things it was doing until last summer. Concern about this came not just from Italy but from everybody, there is a return of speculation on derivative and commodity markets." Continued

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55C0PU20090613

filed in U.S. Treasury News on Jun.13, 2009

June 13, 2009
TG-171

Statement of G8 Finance Ministers


Lecce, Italy, 13 June, 2009

We, the G8 Finance Ministers, remain focused on addressing the ongoing global economic and financial crisis. We have taken forceful and coordinated action to stabilize the financial sector and provide stimulus to restore economic growth. There are signs of stabilization in our economies, including a recovery of stock markets, a decline in interest rate spreads, improved business and consumer confidence, but the situation remains uncertain and significant risks remain to economic and financial stability.

Even after output growth begins picking up, unemployment may continue to increase. Our countries will continue to implement actions to reduce the impact of the crisis on employment and maximise the potential for growth in jobs in the period of economic recovery, including by promoting targeted active labor market policies, enhancing skills development, ensuring effective social protection systems and enabling labour markets to respond to broader structural changes.

We must remain vigilant to ensure that consumer and investor confidence is fully restored and that growth is underpinned by stable financial markets and strong fundamentals. We will continue working with others in taking the necessary steps to put the global economy on a strong, stable and sustainable growth path, including by continuing to provide macroeconomic stimulus consistent with price stability and medium-term fiscal sustainability and restore lending. We reaffirm our commitment to address liquidity and capital needs of banks, as necessary, and to take all necessary actions to ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions.
We discussed the need to prepare appropriate strategies for unwinding the extraordinary policy measures taken to respond to the crisis once the recovery is assured. These “exit strategies”, which may vary from country to country, are essential to promote a sustainable recovery over the long term. We asked the IMF to undertake the necessary analytical work to assist us with this process.
While the stabilization of the economy over the short term is critical, we also discussed other challenges ahead of us.

The crisis has revealed the importance of strengthening our commitment to standards of propriety, integrity and transparency. To address these issues in a comprehensive fashion, we agreed on the need to develop the Lecce Framework – a set of common principles and standards regarding the conduct of international business and finance – which builds on existing initiatives and lays the foundation for a stable growth path over the long term (see the attached annex for details). We are committed to working with our international partners to make progress with this initiative, with a view to reaching out to broader fora, including the G20 and beyond.
We discussed regulatory reform in our countries and at the international level. We are swiftly implementing the decisions taken at the London Summit and call on others to join our efforts to ensure global financial stability and an international level playing field. We urge the relevant international institutions to closely monitor the implementation of these decisions. We also call on the FSB to develop a toolbox of measures to promote adherence to prudential standards and cooperation with jurisdictions.

Continued>>>
http://digitalgoldmoney.com/statement-of-g8-finance-ministers/

It's all about the dollar, the banks,
speculation, markets..

.. but not people.