By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Korea is expected to play a pivotal role in pushing ahead with the task of overhauling the world’s financial system as agreed upon at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Washington over the weekend.
The Ministry of Strategy of Finance (MOSF) said Sunday that the country would work with Brazil and the United Kingdom to come up with action plans of the G20 summit declaration.
Heads of the world’s top 20 countries, which account for about 90 percent of the world’s aggregate gross domestic product (GDP), gathered at Washington over the past few days to discuss how to deal with the ongoing financial crisis.
They announced a general statement of principles but delegated specific action plans to Brazil, the U.K. and Korea, which will chair the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting between 2008 and 2010.
``Together with Brazil and the U.K., we will flesh out the general principles of the Washington summit so that they can be executed as the G20 summit intended,’’ MOSF Director General Choi Jong-ku told The Korea Times.
``The three countries will work on a draft of action plans. Hence, those three will be responsible for 70 to 80 percent of the scheme,’’ he said.
Included in the agenda are the financial status of the International Monetary Fund, the international firefighter that helps financially engulfed countries, global accounting practices and worldwide financial reform, to name a few.
Choi said the government would contact officials of Brazil and the U.K. this week to have a meeting as soon as possible although details of the gathering have not been decided, yet.
``We don’t know where the task force team will be headquartered. It should be one of those three,’’ Choi said. ``Anyway, we think that we will be able to represent interests of emerging nations including Korean-specific ones.’’
In August, Korea was selected to host the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting for 2010 in a competition with Indonesia and Japan, according to Choi.