A global currency war has come to an end, at least temporarily, as the Group of 20 leaders have agreed on a timetable for developing a concrete tool to balance current accounts, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Friday.
"For now, in conclusion, (the world) is out of the so-called currency war," Lee said in a press conference summing up the results of the two-day
G-20 summit in Seoul.
After strenuous debate by their negotiators, heads of state from the advanced and emerging economies agreed to develop "indicative guidelines" aimed at assessing trade imbalances for preventive and corrective actions needed.
"Concrete guidelines will be made by the first half of next year and evaluated," Lee said. The G-20 leaders will finalize the issue by the next
G-20 summit in France in November of next year, he said, calling the set timetable "remarkable progress."
A joint communique from the summit said, "These indicative guidelines composed of a range of indicators would serve as a mechanism to facilitate timely identification of large imbalances that require preventive and corrective actions to be taken."
It added that the leaders "call on our Framework Working Group, with technical support from the IMF and other international organizations, to develop these indicative guidelines, with progress to be discussed by our
Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the first half of 2011."