IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said it was too early for policymakers to withdraw stimulus that’s driving the global recovery.
“The global economy is recovering, even if its recovery is fragile,” Strauss-Kahn said in a speech at Tokyo University in Japan’s capital yesterday.
A plan to withdraw emergency measures “should be designed today” yet not “implemented” because world economies are still dependent on government support and private demand remains weak, he said.
Strauss-Kahn had said earlier this month that the world’s economic recovery is occurring “sooner and stronger” than anticipated. More than US$2 trillion in government spending around the world has spurred growth, pulling economies out of a recession spurred by a meltdown in the US housing market.
Government measures “should be focused more on what is likely to fight unemployment,” he said yesterday.
Strauss-Kahn said countries haven’t done enough to tighten regulation in the wake of the global financial crisis.
“The root of the crisis” was “a failing of regulation and supervision of the financial sector in the US,” he said. “A lot has already been done, but it’s not enough.”
He urged nations to consider having companies in the financial sector help solve the problems they created.
US President Barack Obama’s proposed levy on the country’s banks is “very welcome” and “a good idea,” Strauss-Kahn said.
Obama is proposing a tax on the country’s biggest financial firms to get back taxpayer money that bailed out those companies during the worst recession since the 1930s. The fee would apply to financial companies with assets of more than US$50 billion such as Citigroup Inc, American International Group Inc and Bank of America Corp.
Non-financial companies that also got bail-out aid including General Motors Co and Chrysler Group LLC would be exempt from the levy.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2