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G-20 ministers meet in Ottawa to discuss world economy

Ajit Jain, in Toronto

Finance ministers from 20 developed and developing countries, including India have gathered in Ottawa, Canada for the G-20 meeting that started on Friday and will conclude on Sunday.

Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin, who's chairing the conference, said at a luncheon on Friday that the world community must use the same energy it has dedicated to the fight against terrorism to ensure that the benefits of globalisation are shared by all, especially the world's poor.

"The physical assault levelled against us is being met by an international coalition of nations, faiths and force that will not fail," he said. "We must dedicate ourselves to the cause of economic security for all people, just as surely as we have dedicated ourselves to the cause of physical security."

Riot police watched as a group of protesters marched by, waving signs, shouting and blowing whistles. Some demonstrators broke past barricades, smashed shop windows and wrote anti-globalization slogans on walls and sidewalks.

According to police estimates there are about 5,000 protesters and their protest is low key because of September 11 tragedy.

Martin's address, entitled Globalization, Terrorism and the World economy, is like a curtain raiser for the G-20 meeting, and the participants also include the European Union, and representatives of the World bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In his speech, Canadian finance minister said the G-20 has three goals for its third annual meeting:

• Dealing with the economic impact of September 11

• Agreeing to a global action plan to combat terrorist financing, and

• Ensuring that globalisation works for all - especially for the poorest.

"Economies cannot withdraw their links; we must make them stronger, international and multilateral tools cannot be laid aside; we must take them up as never before," said Martin. "This must be the spirit that we should adopt for this weekend's meetings."

"We're going to ask developing countries to put structures in the banking systems to fight terrorist financing, and they are going to require assistance, and they will say they are willing to do that. But we have other priorities such as health and education. And I think we should look at the total package," he added.

The economic future is gloomy, says the latest report of the IMF. The world economy faces an "extraordinary degree of uncertainty," says IMF head Horst Koehler.

The IMF predicts the global economy will now only grow by 2.4 per cent this year.

Koehler reminded the developed countries, including Canada, of their responsibility to poorer and developing nations, to get the global economy growing more quickly.

Those who are protesting are largely under the banner of 50 Years Is Enough Network, a group based in Washington and its name refers to a half-century of indifference to poverty by the World Bank.

"The reason we protest is to try to persuade decision-makers of the merits of our case. I don't think at this moment in the United States the time is very right for this particular tool to work as well as it did before September 11," conceded Soren Ambrose, amongst the leaders of protest groups.

But even without the street protests the anti-globalisation movement has already moved the debate on issues such as global poverty and environmental degradation, Ambrose said.

The protest groups want the World Bank and IMF to cancel debt for impoverished countries and open all their meetings to the public. They also want an end to policies that hinder access to food, clean water, shelter and health care under a practice known as structural adjustment.

Martin said it is fitting that the G-20 and IMF meetings, planned for New Delhi but moved for security reasons after September 11, are being held in Ottawa.

"There's a tremendous opportunity for Canada to take the leadership in this area and a tremendous opportunity for Canada to set the standard by which other countries can measure themselves," he stated.

G-20 members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia. South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the Untied Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

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