No more quick fix

Two years after the Group of 20 (G20) managed to haul the world economy out of a global crisis that otherwise could well have been much worse, there is growing disappointment over its apparent lack of any sense of urgency to come up with concrete measures and a timetable to fix the increasingly outdated global economic and financial systems.

When finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 rich and developing countries meet in Paris on Feb 19-20, they should no longer expect the coordinated stimulus packages to replace the painful but necessary long-term solutions.

Admittedly, the world economy is on track for a dual-speed recovery. But the current easing of the global crisis does not mean the root causes of the global economic woes have been identified and fixed.

A lasting global recovery will require an overhaul of the global economic and financial systems to better reflect and serve the new world economic landscape.

It is right for the two-day G20 talks in Paris to focus on stabilizing the global economy by working on an agenda that includes regulation of the commodities market, monetary reforms and reaching a consensus on indicators to measure the global imbalances.

Yet, such an agenda still falls far short of what is required. Major global policymakers have to come to grips with the severity of the problems within the international economic and financial systems and find solutions in order to ensure a sustained global recovery.

The proposed agenda recognizes the need to gradually reduce the world's reliance on the US dollar. But the monetary reform it suggests is too incremental to prevent inflation in emerging economies and deficits in rich countries from running out of control.

Rising food prices and rapid inflows of capital are stoking inflation in many developing countries, which threaten their fast growth, and rich debt-laden countries still ignore their fiscal responsibilities with a loose monetary stance. The United States' proposal for a $1.1-trillion deficit reduction over the next decade, for instance, will hardly make a dent in its long-term fiscal problem.

Under such circumstances, fast-growing developing economies could either grind to a halt to slow the global recovery, or high-deficit rich countries are forced to bite the bullet in defaulting on public debts.

Both results are neither desirable nor unavoidable. If policymakers can get away from their reliance on stopgap painkillers like printing more money, the G20 meeting will serve as a useful platform for more stable, predictable world economic growth.

But if they just focus on tinkering with obsolete global economic and financial systems and on reaping only low-hanging fruit, they will find less to agree on because of their different domestic challenges and policy mandates.

The current easing of the global crisis may be a false dawn. But the G20 can render it a window of opportunity by setting in motion the tough reforms that are needed.