MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

G-20 summit: Top UK Treasury delegation visits Argentina

Timms meets with Argentine officials to exchange ideas

A delegation from the British treasury visited this week Argentina to exchange ideas about the coming G-20 summit to be held in London next April when world leaders will attempt to address the global recession and drying up of credit.

Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Rhys Bowen head of the Treasury Emerging markets Department together with British ambassador in Buenos Aires, Shan Morgan met with Argentina's Foreign Affairs ministry Secretary of Commerce and International relations, Alfredo Chiaradía. According to a brief release from Palacio San Martín, the Foreign Affairs ministry seat, Mr. Timms specific interest was to exchange ideas about the policies to be addressed in the coming summit hosted by PM Gordon Brown since UK currently chairs the Group of 20 world leading and emerging countries. Timms said that several task groups are already working on some of the ideas, proposals to be considered, and he was specifically interested in the Argentine stimulus plan, since there's growing awareness of the need of a more profound coordination of these plans that are being announced or implemented by different countries. Regarding monetary policy, Mr. Timms said that "a collective minimal definition" is expected, establishing "the commitment of monetary authorities not to increase the cost of money as long as the crisis lasts". Chiaradía underlined that the crux of the (global) problem remains in the fact that most banks are reluctant to lend and he added it would be most constructive if the coming London summit "could agree on some specific initiative on the issue". The Argentine and British official agreed that a fluid exchange of ideas was necessary to reach consensus that will help address the crisis. Chiaradía also pointed out that regarding stimulus policies to keep the economy running, "Argentina has done its share", but also demands a more balanced dialogue and participation regarding multilateral organization reforms. "Argentina for the last few years has been growing at an average annual rate of 8.5% and this was achieved with scarce financing for production and trade". The first G-20 summit was held in December in Washington with no outstanding results. At the time the US had an outgoing president and an elected president. However this time US President Barack Obama will attend with strong congressional support, several significant initiatives to prop the economy approved and the expectations that the charismatic leader has managed to generate so far. Latinamerica will be represented by the region's three largest economies, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.