Leaders of the G20, the world's major economies are meeting in London
to hammer out some agreement and coordinated effort to stem the global
recession and find a way back to growth.
Some of the world's
most powerful leaders, along with their finance chiefs are meeting at
London's ExCel Center to try to forge common ground on tackling the
world's economic crisis.
What they are hoping to do is to come
up with a coordinated plan to ease the recession, get their economies
back on track and put in place regulatory measures to try to prevent
similar crises in future.
Indications are there will be no
agreement on more stimulus packages, general agreement on free trade
and against protectionism, agreement on more money for the
International Monetary Fund, and there is likely to be some agreement
on greater regulation.
Economist Gianluca Benigno of the London
School of Economics says cracking down on tax havens should not be an
immediate concern.
"If you want to find a scapegoat you can, but
that is not the main issue on which you want to focus. If you want to
focus on that for populist reasons, that is another matter," he said.
There
is a good deal of popular anger at bankers and traders who are widely
seen as having taken too many risks with other people's money and at
the wealthy, who stand accused of using tax havens to shelter their
money. So, cracking down on them is generally popular. But many
economists say the bigger issues to worry about include bad bank debt
and lack of liquidity.
The United States and Britain wanted to
see other governments plow more funds into their economies as
stimulus. But, strong opposition came from many countries, especially
Germany and France in fear of increasing the debt burden. Most
European nations instead want tougher regulation on the banking and
finance sectors.
Analysts say that even if the G20 leaders do
not agree on all points, it is crucial that they send a message to the
public and to jittery markets that they understand the gravity of the
crisis and that they are committed to working together to try to
resolve it.
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