Finance minister attends G20 meeting in Russia

Korea’s finance minister will attend a meeting of G20 countries in Russia this week and exchange views on global economic situations and other pending issues with his counterparts, his office said yesterday.

Bahk Jae-wan will leave for Moscow to attend the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers that will kick off a two-day run today, according to the finance ministry.

The meeting comes before the leaders of the G20 countries hold summit talks in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in September.

“The meeting is the first of its kind to be chaired by Russia, and its main objective is to discuss action plans for each agenda item ahead of the G20 summit talks,” the ministry said in a press release.

Participants will exchange views after listening to briefings by the IMF and each member country, the ministry said. The euro zone crisis, fiscal problems in the United States and possible economic slowdowns in emerging countries are expected to be among the top issues.

Participants will likely have a “heated” debate over a possible “spillover” effect from quantitative easing by advanced countries and discuss what measures emerging countries have to take in response to such credit-expanding actions, the ministry said.

Korea and other emerging countries have expressed concerns over possible side effects from credit-easing moves by the U.S. and Japan.

Bahk earlier called into question the intended effect of expanded liquidity injected by major countries in improving the overall economic fundamentals and also raised worries that it could result in inflating the “bubble.”

In a related move, G20 countries agreed in November to launch research and development on an index that helps gauge the spillover effects from domestic polices of individual members, the ministry said. Yonhap