S. Korea's Leadership was Distinguishable in G20 Meeting: French Finance Minister

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde expressed positive responses to the outcome of the G20 Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting in Gyeongju.

"I came to Korea with apprehension but now I return with appreciation," Lagarde said after the meeting on October 23.

She said that she was deeply worried beforehand, because there was a long list of conflicting issues among the G20 nations. However, she gave credit to Korea whose leadership was distinguishable in mediating the differences.

To the question whether the outcome gives disadvantages to European countries, "they could feel uncomfortable with the decision on the reform of the IMF's quota and 2 fewer advanced European chairs, but that was one of long-held problems that need to fixed. Korea and Canada, the two host countries of the G20 Summit helped resolve the problem in Europe," Largarde said.

"Since the global financial crisis, the world has been experiencing a spillover effect in which a country's policy that is good for the economy has negative impacts on other countries. The IMF's work to conduct spillover assessments of the wider impact of systemic economies' policies will be a welcome solution," she said.

The French Finance Minister countered the question that the meeting of Finance Ministers won't pay off since it has no legal binding, saying "the Gyeongju meeting was a kind of preliminary before the actual G20 Summit. The formal summit will deal with more specific things. We have to attain more achievements based on the Communique produced in the Finance Ministers' meeting."

As for the financial reform issue, which has been one of France's goals to push ahead with, Lagarde displayed satisfactions.

"We made great strides in the global financial reform issue, which was one of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's agendas. It is a critical time for each country to deliver on the agreement with regard to regulations on the commodity and financial derivative markets," Lagarde said.

[Written by Ye-kyung Han - Su-hyun Song]

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