GYEONGJU, South Korea (MNI) – Top financial policymakers from the
Group of Seven and Group of 20 economies are meeting here Friday to try
to resolve an impasse over currency interventions as well as looking for
ways to coordinate for balanced global growth and financial stability.

It’s a tall order and there are no quick remedies are in sight.

The task for financial officials this weekend is to find a way to
coordinate the seemingly irreconcilable policy stances of the advanced
and emerging market economies.

Europe and the U.S. are holding to their extremely easy monetary
policy stances as businesses and households deleverage and that’s
prompting investors to shift into the higher-yielding securities which
are available in the emerging market economies.

Emerging market economies, including Brazil, have placed
restrictions on the flood of capital inflows which they blame on the
super-accommodative monetary policies and accumulated fiscal stimuli of
the advanced economies.

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said that officials will
just have to “put (our) heads together.”

He denied that the G7 and G20 finance chiefs will discuss
individual members’ currency regimes, although Japan will brief other
countries about what it has recently done to prevent the potentially
debilitating sharp appreciation of the yen against the dollar.

“We will discuss how to stabilize and enhance the international
currency order. It’s going to be a bigger picture debate,” he told
reporters ahead of the meetings.

“We must share the view that competitive moves to devalue currency
rates, as history shows, would be negative for the world economy,” he
said.

The G20 group of countries must agree on coordinated policies to
rebalance global growth — including exchange rates — to avoid
derailing the world economy, said Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner
for Economic and Financial Affairs, ahead of the start of the meetings.

“We are at a critical juncture and there is a danger of (a)
non-cooperative way forward. This would risk derailing global growth,”
he said.

“It is much better that we aim at rebalancing growth by effective
policy coordination than by taking unilateral action.”

“It is essential that we can agree to avoid any spiral of
competitive devaluations and instead we need enhanced and effective
policy coordination on exchange rate issues.”

Japan intervened in the foreign exchange markets last month for the
first time in over six years as the yen hit a 15-year high against the
dollar.

The Japanese government differentiates between maintaining a
floating exchange rate system but conducting “smoothing operations” in
the currency markets and China’s stance of managing the exchange rate
under a much less flexible system.

The U.S. has been exerting pressure on China to make its exchange
rate more flexible while Japanese government leaders have criticised
both China and South Korea for controlling the yuan and won exchange
rates in order to maintain their export competitiveness.

Last week Noda and Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament that
Seoul should be an example by honoring the Group of 20 accord on
currency reform as the chair of the G20. They suggested that the won has
also been kept artificially low against other currencies.

In order to achieve stable foreign exchange rates in global
markets, Noda said in his parliamentary testimony that Japan will
continue to push for “further reform of exchange rate regimes” among
emerging market economies with current account surpluses.

Europeans also think countries with strong economic growth should
let their currencies appreciate to reflect their economic might.

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said on Friday that G20
central bankers and finance ministers will be exploring ways to create a
more “balanced situation” in global exchange rates when they meet today.

“The balanced situation is…to have a currency reflecting the
situation of the economic developments in the country,” he told
reporters.

“We will see whether it is possible to have normal evolution, if it
is possible to have (a) strong currency with a strong economy and not a
weak currency with a strong economy,” he said.

Noda said Friday that the G7 has confirmed that a strong and stable
world financial system is in “our common interest.”

It is important to reflect economic fundamentals in foreign
exchange markets, and excessive or disorderly moves in exchange rates
will have a negative impact on economic and financial stability, he
said.

The group has also agreed to watch markets closely and conduct
appropriate coordination, he added.

“We will reconfirm these at the G20 meeting,” Noda said.

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa didn’t volunteer any
remedies for the impasse, also declining to comment on whether it is
appropriate for some emerging market economies to restrict capital
inflows.

“It is an important approach by both developed and emerging
countries to work toward the development of the world economy,” he told
reporters.

msato@marketnews.com
** Market News International Tokyo Newsroom: 81-3-5403-4833 **

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