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US administration calls for courage to address global crisis

12 February 2009 08:58 (UTC +04:00)

Bakuâ€“ APA-Economics. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will urge America’s major allies to take bold actions to deal with the global economic crisis, a senior Treasury official said Wednesday, AP reports.
Geithner will update finance ministers in the Group of Seven major industrial countries on the Obama administration’s efforts to deal with America’s financial crisis and recession, and hear what their countries are doing to help ease the global downturn, said the official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the G-7 finance ministers had not yet met.
Geithner will be participating in his first G-7 meeting since taking office last month. The discussions will occur in Rome starting with a dinner meeting Friday, followed by daylong talks Saturday.
The G-7 finance officials will hear a report from Mario Dragi, head of Italy’s central bank and chairman of the Financial Stability Forum, an advisory group of G-7 and other nations that has been studying ways to improve the operations of the global financial system.
Besides Geithner, the U.S. delegation will include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. They will be meeting with their counterparts from Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.
The severe financial crisis that hit the U.S. with force last fall also has rocked other countries. Many other nations have launched their own programs to deal with the banking crisis and to jump-start economic growth so the global economy does not slide into a more serious downturn.
Geithner on Tuesday unveiled a major overhaul of the previous administration’s $700 billion financial rescue program. While markets reacted adversely following their initial look at the revamped bailout program, administration officials said they remained convinced the new effort represented a substantial improvement over the Bush administration’s approach.