Asia-Pacific

S Korean president urges action on G20 agreements

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-11-03 11:37

SEOUL - The world's major economies will have to put agreements they have thus far reached on the global economy into concrete action, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Wednesday.

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"Now is the time for the G20 to put its agreements into concrete action," Lee told reporters at a press conference held a week before the G20 summit in Seoul, slated for Nov 11-12.

The forthcoming G20 summit will provide a venue for closer international cooperation that would help ensure the world economy' s sustainable and balanced growth, the president added.

Lee admitted some skepticism towards the viability of international cooperation in the time of a global downturn, but the conference among the G20 finance ministers and central bankers, held in October in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, " brightened the prospect" for global collaboration to put the world economy back on the right track, he said.

"There was a dramatic consensus at the Gyeongju conference," he said, referring to agreements on the direction of exchange rate policies and reforms of the International Monetary Fund. The conference helped shape a fundamental frame for easing the international economic imbalance, he said.

"At the Seoul summit, we'll try to make some visible achievements on the newly added agenda of strengthening a global financial safety net and development," the president said, later announcing that the leaders at the summit will unveil 100 action plans for development of poor countries.