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12Nov10
Obama calls G20 summit "very successful"
U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday the G20 economic summit in Seoul among the world's richest countries has been "very successful," commenting on some issues that he said made "enormous progress."
In his press conference following the release of the communiqu , which declared the leaders' commitment to ensuring more market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility and stemming competitive devaluation of currencies, the president called for efforts to further spur the nascent global economy.
Obama said the world economy is "back on the path of recovery," but the fledgling rebound is not happening "fast enough" and has yet to achieve balanced growth, a major goal the Seoul summit has sought to achieve.
The president shed special light on sweeping reform measures of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and financial regulatory reforms, two particular issues that made the most visible progress during the two-day summit.
The leaders have agreed to modernize the IMF by giving more voice to emerging economies through shifts in quota shares, a drastic reform measure the world always considered but never managed to put in place. But the leaders finally "got it done" at the summit, Obama said.
Financial regulatory reforms are another key area where the leaders took a big step forward, the president said. The new bank capital and liquidity framework agreed upon at the summit will help increase resilience of the global banking system, the leaders said in the communiqu.
Still, progress cannot always be "revolutionary," he cautioned.
"Exchange rates must reflect economic realities," Obama said, touching upon the thorniest issue at the summit. "Emerging economies need to allow for currencies that are market driven. This is something that I raised with President Hu of China."
Regarding the free trade deal with South Korea, talks of which that discusses renegotiations hit a snag right before the G20 summit, Obama said he remains "absolutely confident" that the deal has many things to offer for both countries involved.
He is "not interested" in the free trade deal just for the sake of clinching such a deal, Obama said, adding the main job for him, as president, is: "Do we have a deal that works for us?"
[Source: Xinhua, Seoul, 12Nov10]
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