Rio Group wants urgent action on Russia, Asia
01:31 p.m Sep 05, 1998 Eastern
By Michael Winfrey
PANAMA CITY, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Mexican Foreign Minister Rosario Green called on Saturday for urgent action to reduce the impact on Latin America of the economic crisis in Russia and Asia.
''In the world today, there is a very delicate situation that should be attended to immediately to slow the crisis from worsening and causing major damage in our region,'' Green told reporters at a summit of the Group of Rio in Panama.
At the end of the meeting later on Saturday, Latin American heads of state will sign a declaration appealing to international financial institutions and the Group of Seven to reflect urgently on the crisis that is threatening emerging Latin American economies.
A draft of the document, approved by Rio Group foreign ministers, recommended that group members ''strengthen internal savings to reduce foreign financial dependency and to promote investments over the long term.''
''The volatility of short term investments comprises a factor of potential instability for world economies,'' the document added.
On Friday, finance ministers from Latin America met officials of the International Monetary Fund in Washington to analyse the world economic crisis.
The ministers were said to have criticised the IMF for not promising to provide immediate credits to help their economies confront the looming crisis.
The Rio group expands the Contadora Group of Panama, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico, bringing in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay.
The summit has been marred by the absence of three of the group's most influential presidents -- Carlos Menem of Argentina, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Julio Maria Sanguinetti of Uruguay.
Investors yanked more than $1 billion out of Brazil for the fourth straight day Friday, sending regional stock prices sharply lower and turning the world spotlight on Latin America's fragile economies.
The dollar flight from Brazil -- sparked largely by fears that Latin America's largest nation will eventually be forced to devalue -- caused shares in Sao Paulo to close more than 6 percent down at their lowest level since June 1996.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. |
