Korean official: G-20 stimulus must be ambitious

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-26 11:13

SEOUL, South Korea -- World leaders should push for ambitious stimulus at next week's economic summit in London, a key aide to South Korea's president said Wednesday.

Sakong Il, senior economic adviser to President Lee Myung-bak, said a stimulus figure of 2 percent of gross domestic product for governments advocated by the International Monetary Fund is a "very good starting point."

But given the IMF's latest prediction that the global economy will contract in 2009 means more aggressive measures are necessary, he said.

"If any number should be produced at this point, the number should be higher," Sakong said. He added it was "critical" for there to be "concerted and well-coordinated macroeconomic policy implementation."

Fiscal stimulus is expected to be a key topic of debate when leaders from the Group of 20 gather April 2 in London. The US is pushing for countries to spend more to lift their nations out of slumps, while some European countries want to see more emphasis placed on beefing up regulations to prevent future financial crises.

The Washington-based IMF predicts that the global economy will shrink between 0.5 and 1 percent this year, pushing the world into its first recession in 50 years.

Sakong, a veteran policymaker who served as South Korea's finance minister in 1987-88, said Seoul has earmarked about 4.3 percent of GDP this year for fiscal stimulus, with approximately 2 percent of that coming in a supplementary budget announced Tuesday.

He also said the country's budget expenditures have been "frontloaded," meaning that 60 percent of the spending would be disbursed in the first half of the year.

"So we are ahead of many other countries in terms of implementing our fiscal stimulus," he said.

South Korea is a member of the so-called G-20 "troika," along with Britain and Brazil. The troika consists of the countries that chair the G-20 over a three year period.

Brazil was last year's chair, Britain is this year's and South Korea will hold the position in 2010.

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