MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Russia hosts G8 Finance ministers' summit

Russia which has become a world oil powerhouse hosts its first meeting of finance ministers from G8 nations this weekend with debt and energy on the agenda, but traditional topics like exchange rates and the US current account deficit are conspicuously absent.

President Vladimir Putin will open the gathering with a lavish Kremlin banquet and concert. But when Finance ministers get down to work on Saturday, the main issue of the group's traditional discussions ? how to tackle global economic imbalances ? will be off the agenda.

Russia was invited to join the Group of Eight in the 1990s to cement its transition from communism to democracy but remains largely an onlooker when finance ministers of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada get together.

However chairing the group for the first time, Moscow will begin with a proposal to buy back between 11 and 12 billion US dollars in debt it owes mainly to G8 members to finance Third World debt relief.

"We have to bring this initiative to life," said a senior Russian finance ministry source.

Washington also backs efforts to recapitalize the International Development Agency (IDA), the aid arm of the World Bank which will bear the cost of a 38 billion US dollars plan agreed last year to write off all debts owed by poor African countries.