KEY THEMES AND FACT SHEET ON LONDON G20 SUMMIT

UNCLAS STATE 031659


E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON EFIN KPAO
SUBJECT: KEY THEMES AND FACT SHEET ON LONDON G20 SUMMIT

REF: (A) 08 STATE 134465 (B) 08 STATE 113810


1. (U) This cable provides key themes and messages for
posts' use in commenting on the April 2 London Summit.
A detailed fact sheet outlining U.S. goals and
objectives for the Summit is reproduced at para 3 below.
The fact sheet has already been released to the U.S.
press and may be distributed at post.


2. (U) For updated press statements, public remarks,
and other information related to the Summit, posts
should refer to Infocentral.

KEY MESSAGES
--------------

-- As the President has emphasized, we face a global
financial and economic crisis which requires a
coordinated global response.

-- The G-20 countries must take bold, comprehensive and
coordinated action on two key fronts - first to restart
global growth now, and secondly to reform the
supervisory and regulatory framework so that similar
crises do not happen again.

-- For our part, the United States has taken dramatic
and unprecedented action to put our own economic house
in order - by approving a far-reaching economic stimulus
package, by taking steps to stabilize our financial
system and restart the flow of credit, and by
comprehensively reforming our supervisory and regulatory
structure.

-- To assist those countries hit hard by the global
crisis, the United States and its global partners are
moving to significantly increase the resources available
to the international financial institutions.

-- We also strongly support modernizing the governance
of the IFIs to better reflect the realities of today's
world economy.

-- Open markets for trade and investment have been a key
driver of world prosperity, and we must resist the
temptation of protectionist measures and economic
nationalism as we fashion a response to the crisis.

-- As this crisis unfolds, we must also pay attention to
the special needs of the poorest. The United States
remains committed to ensuring that the multilateral
development banks and the IMF have the sufficient
resources to fulfill their missions, and to substantial
increases in our own national programs.


FACT SHEET ON THE LONDON ECONOMIC SUMMIT
--------------

3. (U) The Fact Sheet below was developed by the
Treasury and can be used to explain U.S. goals and
objectives going into the April 2 Summit. It was
released to the press on March 31 and may be distributed
at post.

Begin text:

President Obama and world leaders will gather in London
representing more than 20 countries and more than 85
percent of the global economy. At no time since World
War II have world leaders come together in the same way
to address economic challenges and the international
financial system. With global income set to decline for
the first time in 60 years and unemployment rising in
nearly every country, this is a global crisis and it
requires a coordinated global response.

During the course of the meeting, Leaders will discuss
the path to global growth and recovery and efforts to
avert future crises of this magnitude. The G-20
countries together must take aggressive action on two
fronts - first to ensure economic recovery and restart
global growth and second to reform the supervisory and
regulatory framework to prevent economic crises from
occurring in the future while encouraging innovation and
growth. These policies will affect the economic well-
being of the world's population for generations to come.
For our part, the Obama Administration has taken
decisive action to stimulate domestic economic growth,
restore the health of our banks, provide credit to
households and businesses, and develop a regulatory and
supervisory structure to ensure such a crisis never
happens again.

Improving the health of the U.S. economy is good for the
world, just as a robust global economy is necessary to
support U.S. exports, jobs, and growth at home.
Moreover, export growth was responsible for half or more
of U.S. economic growth in the first three quarters of

2008. These exports depend crucially on economic growth
in our trading partners, as the economies of our trading
partners have faltered, our exports have declined.
Increasingly, our exports are going to emerging markets
- markets that have been hard hit both by the global
downturn and by a decline in international lending.
Against this backdrop, the United States is taking
concerted actions to jumpstart growth, promote financial
stability, and lay the groundwork for financial sector
reform both here at home and abroad.

KEY OBJECTIVES OF THE SUMMIT

-- Renewing our commitment to coordinated and
comprehensive action to boost demand and jobs and to
take whatever action is necessary until growth is
restored.
-- Acting forcefully to fix the financial system to get
lending moving again.
-- Discouraging protectionism and economic nationalism.
-- Ensuring sufficient resources and tools to address
the impact of crisis on emerging markets and developing
countries, including the poorest.
-- Ensuring that all systemically-important financial
firms and products are subject to strong oversight.
-- Taking action to strengthen international standards
for weakly-regulated jurisdictions in the prudential,
tax haven, and money laundering areas.
-- Adopting a robust international regulatory framework
to prevent crises of this kind from occurring again.


A STRONG RECORD AT HOME

The United States has taken a leading role in supporting
economic growth and regulatory reform.

-- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed by
Congress and signed into law by President Obama in
February will inject $787 billion into the economy over
the next two years, creating or saving 3.5 million jobs.

-- The Federal Reserve has lowered the federal funds
rate target to near zero and substantially expanded its
balance sheet to lower the cost and increase the
availability of credit in the economy.

-- The Treasury Department has developed a Financial
Stability Plan with detailed programs to address the key
problems at the heart of the current crisis:

(a) Assessing banks' need for an extra capital cushion
in the face of a worsening economy and providing them
with access to capital through the Capital Assistance
Program.

(b) Buying up troubled assets weighing down bank balance
sheets through a Public Private Investment Program,
allowing banks to raise private capital and increase
lending.

(c) Addressing falling housing prices through a mortgage
refinancing and modification program that will help up
to 9 million Americans stay in their homes.

(d) Unlocking frozen credit markets through a Consumer
and Business Lending Initiative to jumpstart new auto,
credit card and student loans.

-- The Administration has put forward a framework for
regulatory reform with new rules of the road to deal
with systemic risk, protect consumers and investors,
eliminate gaps in our regulatory structure and foster
international coordination.

(a) Under the plan, financial products and institutions
will be regulated for the economic function they provide
and the risks they present, not the legal form they
take. For example, for the first time, hedge funds
above a modest size will now need to register with the
Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure that we
monitor and contain the risk they pose to the financial
system.

(b) The plan also recognizes that markets are global and
high standards at home need to be complemented by strong
international standards enforced more evenly and fairly.

A CALL FOR GLOBAL RESPONSE

Economic Recovery

The Group of Twenty countries have adopted policies to
restore growth and improve the health of their financial
systems and have committed to do what is necessary to
restore growth. Representing 85 percent of the global
economy, significant actions from the G-20 to stimulate
demand and stabilize markets has ramifications across
the world. G-20 actions include:

-- Fiscal stimulus packages aimed at boosting employment
and income. For example, China has announced a stimulus
plan of 2.0 percent of its GDP for 2009 and Saudi Arabia
has a stimulus plan for 2009 representing 3.3 percent of
its GDP.

-- Interest rates have been cut aggressively in most
countries, and G-20 central banks will maintain
expansionary policies as long as needed, using the full
range of monetary policy instruments, including
unconventional policy instruments, consistent with price
stability.

-- Financial sector policies to protect the deposits of
households and restore the operations of credit markets.

-- Measures to improve the health of the financial
sector through continued liquidity support, bank
recapitalization, and removing impaired assets from bank
balance sheets.

An increase in international support is necessary to
help the Emerging Markets recover from the crisis. Many
emerging markets escaped the initial effects of the
financial crisis but are now been hard hit by the
contraction in the advanced economies. Recognizing the
considerable risk to global growth should emerging
markets continue to falter, the Leaders have committed
to unprecedented support for the international
institutions to ensure they have sufficient resources to
help stem the deepening of the crisis. And as emerging
and developing economies contract so do their imports of
U.S. goods and services. This downturn is made more
challenging because countries that used to be able to
borrow on capital markets are finding it more difficult,
requiring them to turn to the international financial
institutions for assistance. The G-20 will be exploring
a number of mechanisms for expanding resources available
to emerging markets and developing countries:

-- International Monetary Fund/New Arrangements to
Borrow (NAB): The United States has called for a
significant increase in NAB resources and expanded
participation to include more G-20 countries. The New
Arrangements to Borrow is a 1998 agreement by 26 IMF
member countries to provide billions in supplemental
lending resources to the IMF to use in case of crises;
current NAB resources total $50 billion.

-- International Liquidity/Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
Allocation: Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are reserve
assets that only the IMF can create and whose valuation
is based on a basket of key currencies (the US dollar,
the euro, the yen, and sterling). The G-20 will
consider an allocation of SDRs, which could provide
supplemental liquidity to help emerging market and
developing countries in particular cope with the impacts
of the crisis.

-- Trade Finance: The current decline in trade volumes
is attributable to the economic decline and frozen
financial markets, which has impeded the availability of
short-term trade finance in private markets. To help
facilitate trade flows, the G-20 members and
multilateral development banks will work to ensure the
availability of short-term trade financing over the next
two years, through a variety of national and
multilateral mechanisms.

-- Financing from the multilateral development banks
(MDBs),such as the World Bank, can be instrumental in
helping countries continue to finance health, education,
and infrastructure projects during a time of budget
shortfalls. These resources are also critical for the
poorest countries that have made significant inroads in
improving growth rates and increasing access to health
and education. The G-20 will call for a significant
expansion of the financial commitments of the MDBs.

-- Aid to the Poorest: The G-20 will explore financing
mechanisms specifically targeted at the needs of low
income countries.

FINANCIAL REFORM

To avert another crisis, the Leaders will also need to
reshape how we cooperate on financial issues
internationally. In recent weeks, we have made progress
on enhancing regulatory cooperation that will improve
understanding of the risks in other economies and
provide a common framework for addressing risks as they
arise. In line with good corporate governance, we must
also ensure that our international financial
institutions are well governed with representation
increased for dynamic emerging markets.

INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY COOPERATION AND CRISIS
PREVENTION

-- Financial Stability Forum: The United States took
the initiative to expand the Financial Stability Forum
(FSF) to all G20 members, strengthen its mandate, and
elevate it to serve alongside the IMF, World Bank and
World Trade Organization (WTO) as a strong institution
leading efforts to create a more robust framework of
standards for the global financial system.

-- Weakly-regulated jurisdictions: The G20 is taking
strong action to strengthen the implementation of
international standards by offshore financial centers.

-- Counter-cyclical measures: U.S. regulators have
played a leading role in an FSF effort to agree on the
importance of financial institutions building up capital
in good times to use in bad times, but we have agreed
that now is not the time to raise capital requirements.

-- Crisis management: We have agreed to embrace the
FSF's international crisis management recommendations,
including the need to develop a common set of tools,
improve information sharing, and remove practical
barriers to cooperation.

-- Supervisory colleges: "Supervisory colleges" for at
least 25 of the 30 systemically-important financial
firms have already met, which facilitates information
sharing among the most relevant regulators in those
countries most significant for the health of the
financial firms.

-- Compensation principles: We have agreed to the FSF's
Principles for Sound Compensation Practices, which are
intended to align compensation with risk taking at
significant financial institutions.

IFI GOVERNANCE

Governance of the international financial institutions
(IFIs) must be modernized to enhance their legitimacy
and effectiveness, and to reflect today's world economy.
Dynamic emerging markets must have greater
representation.

-- The U.S. is advocating for an acceleration of the
completion of the next review of IMF quotas to January
2011 in order to see a further shift in voice and vote
to emerging market and developing countries.

-- We support aligning the governance reform process at
the World Bank with that of the IMF.

-- The U.S. believes the full range of governance issues
should be addressed, including reform of the IMF
Executive Board.


End fact sheet text.


CLINTON