The United Kingdom on Friday urged the world’s richest nations to rise to the challenge of creating ”enduring global prosperity” by removing trade barriers and stepping up aid for poorer countries.
Speaking at a conference on the advancement of enterprise ahead of a gathering of finance ministers of leading G7 countries in London, British Minister of Finance Gordon Brown said: ”We have to build a shared economic purpose.”
Within 20 years, half the world’s manufactured exports could come from developing countries, and within a decade five million United States and European jobs could be outsourced, the minister told the conference.
Rich nations need to respond by becoming ”highly skilled world leaders in science and technology”, Brown said.
The conference, attended by high-powered business leaders and bankers, was scheduled to examine the impact on the emergence of India and China as key players in the global economy.
Brown pledged that Britain will use its current presidency of the European Union ”to push forward a new transatlantic trade and investment partnership to remove regulatory and other barriers between the EU and the US”.
US Federal Reserve chairperson Alan Greenspan is to make a keynote speech later on Friday. Other central bank governors, as well as finance ministers from China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia, are also taking part.
Brown said he will urge the finance ministers to take action to ensure enduring global prosperity.
”We will look at how each continent can contribute to that,” he said.
The G7 finance ministers are expected to put pressure on China to relax its pegged currency regime.
The governor of China’s central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, gave away no clues on future exchange rates at a press conference on Friday, which he used to reiterate China’s willingness to work with international bodies such as the G7 to ”keep the global economy more balanced”.
At the G7 meeting, which gets under way with a formal dinner on Friday, Brown is expected to push for extra aid and debt relief for Africa.
Observers said there is little hope that a firm agreement will be reached at the London meeting.
While European countries have shown support for Browns plan to launch a ”Marshall Plan” for Africa, Japan and the US are likely to be harder to convince.
The G7 meeting will also hear the views of Nelson Mandela, who has lent his support to Brown’s cause. — Sapa-DPA