MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Geithner argues growth in China, India, Brazil are boosting US exports

US Secretary of the Treasury testifying before Congress

Rapid growth of emerging economies like China, India and Brazil is boosting the American exports, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said.

“Emerging economies like China, Brazil and India are growing very rapidly. That growth is helping to support rapid growth in US exports which in turn is raising income and employment across the United States in manufacturing and high tech and agriculture,” Geithner said in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The US, he said, is working in the G-20 to help build consensus on long-term reforms that will provide the foundation for a more balanced, more stable global economy.

“We lay out a framework for cooperation that includes movement to more flexible exchange rates by emerging economies, a type of early warning mechanism to help reduce the risk that we see the re-emergence of large external trade imbalances, and help for emerging economies to manage the challenges to come with large flows of capital,” he said.

“A second priority -- we're working very hard to build a more stable international financial system with better oversight of the major global financial institutions -- the major banks -- and the global financial markets,” Geithner noted.

“We're not going to base future growth in the United States on consumption fuelled by borrowing from other countries. Our growth in the United States is going to be come much more from investment and from exports, not from unsustainable financing of housing booms, excess consumption”, said the US official.

The Treasury Secretary said the global economy is now expanding after the profound crisis of the last three years, but the recovery is advancing at different speeds and the
”US recovery stands in between, with growth gathering momentum and inflation risks modest, but with unemployment still unacceptably high”.