‘Currency Issue Hot Potato for G20 Summit’

Choi Hee-nam, director-general of the Agenda Bureau at the Presidential Committee for the G20 Seoul Summit, said, “Currency rows are touched off by an imbalance of the global economy from a big picture perspective.”
Spats between the United States and China over the appreciation of the yuan, which are now mounting around the world, have already become a key topic the G20 Seoul Summit will have to take up. Choi took a cautious attitude in dealing with the currency issues, however.
The United States and China would not find it easy to solve currency issues through bilateral talks, but financial experts say the issues would also be a thorny thing to tackle through the G20, a multilateral decision-making body. The Korean government is apparently at a loss over currency issues, albeit an important thing to all parties, that might overshadow other important topics.
Choi said the G20 countries will not have to discuss currency issues from scratch, but they can be dealt with in line with the Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth. “Strong Growth” calls for collaboration in implementing financing and currency policies, while “Sustainable Growth” deals with financial soundness. “Balanced Growth” focuses on easing the imbalance of the global economy, so G20 countries have, to date, discussed the need to take actions to have big countries that are too dependent on exports expand their domestic demand as well as having big states with a higher portion of government fiscal financing spur the private sector’s consumption.
The G20 Seoul Summit will be briefed with a country-by-country macroeconomic policy report calling for China to expand domestic demand and infrastructure investments and the United States to reduce spending and raise savings.
He noted that development issues, being proposed by the Korean side with the goal of reducing economic development gaps among nations, may be linked with easing the global imbalance, touched off by currency issues.
Director-General Choi, who passed the 29th high-ranking administration exam, has spent most of his career working for the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF) in positions related to international finance. Choi has been charged with hosting and preparing for the convening of the G20 Seoul Summit since December 2008, when he was appointed to head the MOSF’s G20 Planning Corps. nw