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Geithner to Europe: â€™Get on Withâ€™ Crisis Response

27 September 2011 10:03 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner predicted that European governments will step up their response to their regionâ€™s debt crisis after a chiding from counterparts around the world, APA reports quoting Bloomberg.

â€œThey heard from everybody around the worldâ€ in Washington meetings last week, Geithner said on ABCâ€™s â€œWorld News With Diane Sawyerâ€ program. Europeâ€™s crisis is â€œstarting to hurt growth everywhere, in countries as far away as China, Brazil and India, Korea. And they heard the same message from us they heard from everybody else, which is itâ€™s time to move.â€

Geithnerâ€™s remarks maintain pressure on Europe ahead of finance minister and central bank gatherings next week and a decision on whether to disburse a loan Greece may need to avoid default. Speculation that rescue efforts will be strengthened spurred a rally in stocks even after Dutch and Finnish officials said they wonâ€™t boost commitments to a euro-area bailout fund.

Europe has â€œsome time, but not very much time,â€ Geithner said in the interview late yesterday. â€œIf you listen carefully to what they said this weekend, not just to us in private, but what they said publicly, theyâ€™re foreshadowing now the escalation thatâ€™s going to come. And weâ€™d like them to get on with it.â€

The MSCI Asia Pacific index of stocks gained 2.9 percent as of 11:48 a.m. Tokyo time, after national benchmark indexes rallied yesterday in all 18 western European markets except Greece and Norway. Futures contracts on the U.S. Standard & Poorâ€™s 500 Index advanced 0.3 percent. The euro headed for a third session of gains, up 0.2 percent at $1.3554.