經濟廣角:IMF:G20要務是調整全球經濟平衡
IMF chief urges G20 to focus on economic balance
World leaders should make rebalancing the world economy the priority for next week's Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh, says the head of the International Monetary Fund.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Dominique Strauss-Kahn urged the G20 leading industrialised and developing nations to provide the political leadership that had been missing in past efforts to reduce economic imbalances while supporting global growth.
“We need to have rebalancing of growth and in- crease in consumption in the emerging markets to have enough growth in the short term,” he said. “We also need to define what the long-term growth model will be.”
Mr Strauss-Kahn's comments endorse a US-led push to make more balanced global growth – less reliant on debt-fuelled consumption by US consumers – a key theme of the Pittsburgh summit.
The IMF chief said his organisation had been stressing the need to rebalance the global economy for some time. “Multilateral consultations have been held on this topic with conclusions accepted on all sides and nothing happened,” he said.
“We need the G20 to put some steam behind this. The G20 can provide the political leadership while the IMF can provide expertise and capacity. The IMF or World Bank is unable to do this alone.”
G20 officials have discussed a peer-review process by which they would hold each other accountable for implementing policies that move in this direction. The US drive is backed by most European nations, but China appears wary that such a process could be used to put pressure on it to reduce its trade surplus and revalue its currency.
“What they need to do is to try to define together what is the realistic path of adjustment,” said Mr Strauss-Kahn.
He said global imbalances – big differences in national savings, consumption and investment rates reflected in large trade deficits and surpluses – were “bad” and “can be causes of disruptions”. There was “no reason why we would want a situation in the long term in which there are countries with large surpluses and countries with large deficits”.
In the short term, the crisis had resulted in some narrowing of imbalances, with China boosting domestic demand through loans and government spending at a time when there had been a “striking” increase in US household savings.
國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)總裁多米尼克•斯特勞斯-卡恩(Dominique Strauss-Kahn)表示，世界各國領導人應該將調整全球經濟平衡作爲下週20國集團(G20)匹茲堡峯會的首要任務。
在接受英國《金融時報》採訪時，斯特勞斯-卡恩敦促G20主要工業化及發展中國家提供政治領導，這是以往緩解經濟失衡、同時支撐全球增長的努力中缺失的。
“我們必須調整經濟增長平衡，增加新興市場的消費，這樣才能在短期得到充分的增長，”他表示。“我們還需要對長期增長模式進行定義。”
斯特勞斯-卡恩的言論，爲美國領頭的努力提供了支持，即讓更均衡的全球經濟增長（即減少依賴美國消費者的舉債消費）成爲匹茲堡峯會的關鍵主題。
斯特勞斯-卡恩表示，IMF一直在強調調整全球經濟平衡的重要性。“就這個話題展開了數次多邊磋商，各方對結論都表示贊同，但事後沒有任何行動。”
“我們需要G20對此發揮一定的推動作用。G20能夠提供政治領導，而IMF能夠提供專業訣竅與能力。單靠IMF或世界銀行(World Bank)是無力完成這項任務的。”
G20官員已就一套同行評議程序進行了討論，根據這套程序，在實施這方面的政策方面，他們能夠追究彼此的責任。美國的努力得到了多數歐洲國家的支持，但中國似乎表示警惕，擔心其它國家會利用該程序對其施加壓力，要求其縮減貿易順差，提高人民幣匯率。
“它們要做的是，試圖共同定義什麼纔是現實的調整方法，”斯特勞斯-卡恩稱。
他表示，全球失衡——國民儲蓄、消費及投資率的巨大差距，在巨大的貿易順差與逆差之中得到反映——是“有害的”，而且“可能引發危機”。“我們沒有理由希望看到這樣一種長期局勢，即一些國家擁有鉅額順差，另一些國家則擁有鉅額逆差。”
短期來看，本次危機導致失衡略有緩解：中國通過貸款和政府支出提振了國內需求，與此同時，美國家庭儲蓄出現“驚人”增長。
們從這一交易中獲得的利潤。RBC Capital Markets駐多倫多的首席外匯技術分析師戴維斯(George Davis)說，美元似乎正呈現曠日持久的下行趨勢，這是鼓勵人們將美元作爲融資套利交易借入貨幣的又一理由。
