Brussels, 11/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - At the G7 finance ministers meeting in Ottawa on Saturday, politicians broke their long months of silence to express cautious optimism about the prospects for world growth, despite concern at the situation in Argentina. They insisted that the Argentinean government under Eduardo Duhalde had to work closely with the IMF, noting in the final press release that prospects for growth in the G7 economies had sharply improved although risks still remained. They said they would remain vigilant and would all continue to take the measures required for strong, sustained growth. The G7 called on Argentina to make more of an effort to solve the crisis but refused to make any pledges concerning the $15 to 20 billion emergency aid package requested by the Argentine authorities. Spain's economics minister Rodrigo Rato said that the country first had to regain creditor and investor confidence. The G7 says that the new Argentine government has taken steps in the right direction but has to continue to work closely with the IMF to carry out the necessary reforms.
The G7 ministers also discussed Japanese stagflation and the economic situation in Russia. Japan saved face by not being mentioned in the final declaration despite the fact that its public deficit, deflation and the mounting bad debts accumulated by Japanese banks (estimated to total some $277 billion) are giving its partners headaches. US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that the G7 countries had already expressed their views of the Japanese authorities' responsibilities in terms of solving the crisis, but could not see any progress in terms of structural reforms. EU Commissioner Pedro Solbes said that investors would avoid Russia until it had reformed its banking sector, but the G7 congratulated Russia for strong economic growth. Mr Solbes said that Russia had "made remarkable progress towards restring macro-economic stability and equilibrium… but substantial economic problems remain".
The seven also made a positive assessment of five months in the fight against financing terrorism, recalling that 100 million dollars of assets had been frozen since 11 September.