Downing Street Says

Asked why the Prime Minister thought the G20 was relevant to ordinary people in Britain, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had both been setting out in recent weeks and months why the G20 agenda was important for the global economy and therefore the UK economy. It was important that G20 countries addressed the issue of financial regulation to enable proper regulation and supervision of global financial flows. As we had seen from events over the last year, the impact of failure in regulation internationally could have profound effects on the UK economy and that had very real effects on UK jobs, UK workers and UK business.

More widely, we were also going to be discussing the coordination of fiscal and monetary responses, which had a very direct impact on the lives of people in Britain. We had taken a number of steps and actions over recent months to deliver real help to British families and businesses, but as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had made clear, we believed that those actions would be more effective if they were coordinated internationally and that was a message that the Prime Minister reiterated in his conclusions to the European Council press conference on Friday.

It was equally important that the G20 Summit ensured that it put a low-carbon recovery on the agenda and it was very clear that we needed to embed those low-carbon principles in the actions that we took. As people had seen over recent days, with the conclusions of the European Council, we were putting more money into green technology to ensure that that recovery was a low-carbon recovery. These three things were essential to the G20 agenda. They also had a very direct effect on the long-term prosperity of the UK economy.

Asked if the Prime Minister had any concerns that expectations for the G20 had been ramped up too high, the PMS said that our agenda for the G20 Summit tackled the very real challenges that we faced in the global economy.

Asked if the Geithner plan was part of the overall agenda, the PMS said that we welcomed the plan. As the G20 Finance Ministers had set out on the 14th March, they wanted to take whatever action was necessary to restore growth. One of the key priorities for that was to restore lending and one of the necessary steps to achieve that was dealing with impaired assets. The Finance Ministers had set out a framework for G20 countries, which set out the principles that those impaired asset programmes should follow.

Asked how the Prime Minister s visit to Chile was relevant to the G20, the PMS said that the meeting the Prime Minister was attending would bring together a number of G20 leaders. Argentina, Brazil and Australia would be present and it was an opportunity to discuss the G20 agenda. Asked for more detail on the meeting the Prime Minister was attending, the PMS said that he would not comment on the political aspect of it, but having these leaders in the same place gave them an opportunity to discuss the G20 agenda. In the case of Brazil and Argentina, these were important emerging economies that would play a key role in the success of the G20 process. Asked whether the taxpayer was paying for the Progressive Governance leg of the trip, the PMS said that he would check.

Asked if the Prime Minister would include reviving the Doha agreement on the G20 agenda, the PMS said that the Doha round was critical to the expansion of free trade and that was something the Prime Minister had addressed directly in recent months. The PMS said he would not forecast now what would or would not be in the conclusions to the G20 meeting. The agenda did include the importance of defending against protectionism and maintaining open markets.

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» Tuesday, March 24, 2009

G20

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