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Gordon Brown warns of no early end to 'fiscal stimulus'
22 Sep 2009Gordon Brown warned today that there would be no early end to the international "fiscal stimulus" package agreed by world leaders to drag the global economy out of recession.
The Prime Minister, who leaves today for the United States for a week of intensive international summitry, said the one trillion dollar support package agreed last April in London would continue for at least another year.
In comments released ahead of his departure, Mr Brown said that he believed that there was still strong support among world leaders for what he described as a "global compact for growth and jobs".
"I believe that there is support for that framework, that global compact, that plan for growth and jobs," he said.
"The stimulus that we have still got to give the world economy is greater than the stimulus we have already had, so I would say that over the next 15 months you will see America's stimulus higher than it was in the last few months because that is how it is projected to develop, Germany's stimulus next year is higher than this year.
"What we want to do is safeguard a recovery from a recession we feared would develop into a depression."
The timing of the withdrawal of the fiscal stimulus package as the global recovery is likely to be one of the key issues at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday.
British officials travelling with Mr Brown believe that it is essential that any action is carefully co-ordinated at the international level to ensure that the still fragile world economy is not plunged back into recession.
Britain wants to see countries like the US, France and Germany commit to continued state support for the economy as it emerges from recession. G20 finance ministers meeting in London earlier this month agreed that fiscal stimulus packages should be maintained "until recovery is secured".
Mr Brown said the economy was one of five challenges that the world leaders would have to address this week, along with climate change, poverty, nuclear proliferation and terrorism.
Before travelling on to Pittsburgh, Mr Brown will join other leaders in New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Today's proceedings will focus on the climate change with the Prime Minister co-chairing the meeting of a working group on the issue.
Mr Brown has already announced his readiness to attend the crunch UN climate change summit in Copenhagen in December amid growing concern that time is running out for a new deal to cut damaging "greenhouse gas" emissions.
"Long-term targets that have got to be agreed so that we reduce emissions substantially by 2050," he said.
The Prime Minister said a key element would be the financing of a support package to help developing nations switch to new "green" technologies, which he has estimated will need to total around 100 billion dollars.
At the same time, he said that he hoped that countries would be prepared to sign up to a series of intermediate targets for cutting carbon emissions which would show "a quick pathway to making an impact on this problem".
The Prime Minister will address the main General Assembly tomorrow when he will be vying for attention with among others, US President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who are all also expected to speak.
The presence of the Libyan leader may prove particularly uncomfortable for Mr Brown following the bitter row sparked by the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi by the Scottish government.
Mr Brown's spokesman insisted that there were no plans for any bilateral meetings between the two leaders although they would both be attending a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday.
The session, to be chaired by Mr Obama, will focus on his agenda for international disarmament to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile the foreign ministers of the so-called E3+3 group of Britain, France and Germany, plus the US, Russia and China, will meet on Wednesday to discuss planned talks next week with Iran on its nuclear programme.
Reader views (4)
The wisdom of Gordon Clown. As any bankrupt knows when your broke you can easily keep borrowing more and more money. You know it makes sense. Fiscally stimulate yourself into the gutter.
Borrowing 900,000% of your annual income can only lead to vast prosperity for all. Right?
- Ethan, UK, 15/10/2009 15:13
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Wonder if Osbourne knows what the word stimulus means?
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 22/09/2009 12:11
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There will be an upsurge in the economy when Brown and all the corrupt, dishonest ministers are kicked out of office at the next election.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK, 22/09/2009 08:44
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Brown is incorrect. Our problems will cease when he is given the proverbial boot up backside all the way to gloomy Fife at the next General Election.
- Ted, London, 22/09/2009 07:50
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