'Last flurry of effort' ahead: Brown's summit envoy

(londonsummit.gov.uk)
Updated: 2009-03-25 16:59

UK's Foreign Office Minister, Lord Malloch-Brown, was interviewed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday 22 March 2009.

The interview focused on the upcoming G20 London Summit where leaders from across the globe will be meeting up on 2 April 2009. Lord Malloch-Brown is the Prime Minister's special envoy for the G20 Summit.

With just over one week until the Summit, Lord Malloch-Brown said there is an increased 'flurry of effort' to achieve positive outcomes from the day.

"Gordon Brown is going on the road to North America and then South America during the coming days. It's all part of a last flurry of effort to get this from good to, we hope, excellent in terms of an outcome. I think you know on certain areas like trade, doing more for poor countries who are not formally members of the G20 but whose representatives we've invited to join the meeting, trying to make sure that we're where we want to be on fiscal stimulus - on all of these things, it's hard but not impossible."

Lord Malloch-Brown also stressed the need for world leaders to work together during the current economic climate as each country's recovery is interconnected. He said:

"I have seen an extraordinary sense of mutual interdependence of fortunes amongst these political leaders at the moment. They all realise their economies are interconnected and that recovery depends on everybody rising back up together."

On Friday Lord Malloch-Brown attended the Brussels Forum 2009 and commented that the media had built a 'false dichotomy' between countries that favoured further stimulus measures over those that wanted tighter regulation.

"I think the differences are in part definitional, but at times like this, inevitably as the press moves towards 2 April, they are blown up as more than that,' he said. 'The Finance Ministers made it clear in the G20 preparation meeting last weekend that everybody would do what it takes, and the IMF has set a broad global benchmark of 2% this year, 2% next year."

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