G-20 finance ministers work out anti-crisis measures

HORSHAM. March 16. KAZINFORM Russian Vice-Premier and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Saturday that anti-crisis measures proposed at a meeting of the finance ministers of the G-20 states would be published in the next two weeks.

One of the most vital results of the recent ministerial meeting was that Russia and other G-20 countries joined a financial stability forum. ?It means the world financial architecture is being reformed. Our countries will now participate in the working out of the basic rules in financial markets. The role of these rules will be broader, ? Kudrin told a news conference on Saturday. Russia will also become a full-fledged member of the Basel Commission for Financial Supervision. ?It?s also an expansion of Russia?s role in the world financial system,? Kudrin went on to say. He said that Russia had consolidated its position on the World Bank and the IMF reforms with the BRIC states, including Brazil, Russia, India and China. They discussed their role in overcoming the global financial crisis, their functions, purposes and ways of increasing the capital as well as problems of access to the resources of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, regional development banks and regional stabilization funds. Kudrin recalled that Russia was taking part in the creation of an anti-crisis fund worth 10 billion dollars within the Eurasian Economic Community. Russia will contribute 7.5 billion dollars to the fund while Kazakhstan will contribute one billion dollars. Kudrin also told a news conference on Saturday that the outflow of Russian capital would be less than $ 100 bln in 2009. The minister said the flight capital from Russia had practically stopped. ?No noticeable capital drain has been noticed since January. It?s going to be less than $100 bln by the end of the year, less than in 2008, ? Kudrin went on to say. In 2008, capital outflow from Russia was estimated at about $130 bln. Alexei Kudrin said Russia might join a number of regional banks, including the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and was ready to invest in their capitals. He also predicts that the dollar rate will keep falling but the fall won?t be sharp. ?It?s going to last for some time, for the next two or three years, ? Kudrin said. He added that the dollar wouldn?t drop by more than 50% and that the process would depend on the correlation of world economies and the real depth of the crisis, which very few people could predict. As for the idea to create a single world currency, Kudrin said it would take a long time. ?There will be no single world currency in the next 30 years, that?s for sure, and then we?ll see,? the Russian finance minister stressed, Kazinform cites ITAR-TASS.