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Rudd calls for global action for economic recovery

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-21 14:41

CANBERRA: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Monday told US television network CNN that the federal government's stimulus packages and infrastructure investment had insulated Australia from the worst of the global financial crisis.

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Rudd is in New York for a climate change-focused session of the United Nations General Assembly, before heading to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the Group of 20 (G20) developed and developing nations meeting later this week.

"We've managed to be the only economy across the OECD ( Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in the last 12 months to have generated positive growth ... the only one to stay out of recession so far," he said.

However, Rudd admitted local unemployment would continue to rise.

"We are injecting large amounts of stimulus because we believe the maintenance of jobs ... is critical, not just to human decency but critical also in terms of the path to economic recovery," he said.

Rudd called for global actions - such as halting major outbreaks of protectionism - to continue if worldwide economic stability was to be restored.

"Premature calls for the withdrawal of stimulus, which you hear elsewhere around the world, I think are misplaced in terms of the challenges which still lie ahead," he said.  

Rudd outlined two major talking points for the Pittsburgh meetings including a new sustainable growth model.

"To begin among us all to discuss and to deliberate on and to agree on a framework for coordinated withdrawal of these emergency measures over time," he said.

"And secondly ... we need a new sustainable growth model for the future, otherwise we may be looking at the prospect of flat global growth for a while to come."

Rudd said he was confident that global agreement could be reached on these issues.