South Korean President Lee Myung-bak Friday pressed the world's 20 economic powers to reach an agreement on detailed ways for balanced growth and readjustment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota, as their finance ministers and central bankers opened a two-day meeting.
Lee stressed that their talks in the southern ancient city of Gyeongju are crucial for the success of the G-20 summit to be held in Seoul next month.
"A framework agreed upon at the Pittsburgh G-20 summit for strong, sustainable and balanced growth, as well as for a resolution to the imbalance of the world economy, should be implemented," Lee said in a speech at the opening of the meeting intended to fine-tune agenda items for the Seoul summit.
Lee's comments came amid worries that the Gyeongju talks would likely be overshadowed by frictions over foreign exchange rates among major players, like the United States and China. Washington attributes trade imbalances to Beijing's policy of keeping its currency, the yuan, artificially low. Many other nations are intervening into foreign exchange markets. Lee earlier said the global currency war will be discussed at the Seoul summit, but he did not directly mention the issue in Friday's address.
The president also stressed that the G-20 members should meet the deadline for a shift in the IMF quota share to emerging economies.
In Pittsburgh last year, the G-20 leaders agreed to transfer at least 5 percent of the global financial organization's share from over-represented countries to under-represented ones, Lee pointed out.
In their summit in Toronto in June, the leaders agreed to carry out the deal by November this year, he added.
Lee said with skepticism growing over the future of the G-20 summit, the premier forum for global economic cooperation, the Seoul summit, slated for Nov. 11-12, should be successful to show that member states can cooperate even after an economic crisis.
Lee joked that, "If you don't reach a compromise, we may not operate bus, train or airplane services when you go back home."