BERLIN (MNI) – G20 finance ministers at their meeting this weekend
in Paris will likely agree on a set of indicators to analyze global
imbalances, a senior German finance ministry official said Wednesday.
“A set of indicators has now been drawn up, and it is to be
expected that the ministers will approve it,” the source explained.
“This set consists of five indicators: the current account balance,
the real foreign exchange rate, currency reserves, the budget deficit
including the debt level and the private savings ratio,” the official
said.
There will be no quantitative goals set for any of these five
indicators, the source stressed: “There will be no specific target level
for any of these indicators.”
For the G20 discussion about the state of the economy, the
International Monetary Fund has issued an update of its World Economic
Outlook, the official said.
The IMF is still predicting global growth of 4.4% this year and
4.5% next year and has left its forecasts for Germany unchanged at +2.2
and +2.0%, respectively, he noted.
The biggest risks for the global economy, according to the IMF, are
a possible spillover from the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis,
insufficient budget consolidation in some major economies and potential
economic overheating in some emerging economies, coupled with rising
commodity prices, the official explained.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: MT$$$$,M$G$$$,M$X$$$,MGX$$$,MFX$$$,MI$$$$]
