‘Korea Given Credit for Global Financial
Safety Net Discussions at Summit’

Lee Chang-yong, chief of the Planning and Coordination Division of the Presidential Committee for the G20 Seoul Summit, said, “Korea can demonstrate its leadership as the chair of the summit by pursuing the so-called Korea Initiative including development and financial safety net issues.”
Lee is coordinating the fine-tuning of views among G20 member countries as Korea’s Sherpa to prepare for the G20 Seoul Summit to be held on Nov. 11-12.
He elaborated on goals of the G20 Seoul Summit: to have the G20 leaders agree on growth-oriented development and action plans, representing the hope that the G20 Seoul Summit would work out a bigger development regime to pursue.
The idea of global financial safety nets, a tool to prevent a financial crisis arising from a short-term lack of liquidity despite strong economic fundamentals, has gathered momentum for discussion at the Summit as the Korean side’s efforts have paid off by way of the International Monetary Fund’s approval of easing loan conditions.
“We’ve initially got tangible outcomes by improving the Flexible Credit Line (FCL) and introducing the Precautionary Credit Line (PCL),” Lee said. Korea is striving to continue the discussions of the global financial safety nets into next year, said Lee, adding that Korea has been credited by France, the chair of the G20 Summit 2011, with the adoption of the financial safety nets as one of the summit’s topics. nw