WASHINGTON, April 24: Senior finance officials from the world's richest countries issued an upbeat assessment of global growth prospects on Saturday but said the picture was clouded by rising oil prices and foundering trade liberalization talks.
Finance ministers and central bank governors from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States - the Group of Seven - also appealed to their partners to ease the debt burdens carried by Iraq and Afghanistan and to step up the fight against terrorist financing.
The G7 stressed that exchange rates should reflect economic fundamentals and repeated an assessment issued at a previous meeting in February that "excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates" were harmful to economic growth.
"Prospects are favourable, and although risks remain, such as energy prices, overall the balance of risks to the outlook has improved," the G7 statement said.
But in an apparent allusion to the European Union's lagging performance compared with the United States, Japan and China, the ministers maintained that further measures were needed to ensure "more balanced global growth."
Speaking after the meeting, US Treasury Secretary John Snow said private-sector economists foresaw growth of four to five per cent in the United States in the first quarter of 2004.
"What is more," he added, "in my view there is still a lot of headroom for this economy to grow and expand in a non-inflationary way."
The meeting also took note of foundering trade liberalization negotiations launched in the Qatari capital of Doha in November 2001.
The G7, stressing that the successful completion of the talks would ensure more balanced growth and help reduce poverty, appealed for "rapid progress on and early conclusion of the Doha round."
The process is scheduled to conclude in December of this year, but progress has stalled in disputes between developed and developing countries, notably on the elimination of agricultural export subsidies in rich countries.
The G7 consequently maintained that success would "require action by all parties to resolve key outstanding issues."
The meeting, in addition, discussed the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling to emerge from the impact of brutal conflict and crippling debt.
"We call on others to join us in reducing the debt burdens of Iraq and Afghanistan," the statement said.
French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy met here on Friday with US Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss a large cancellation of Iraq's 120-billion-dollar external debt.-AFP
