Emerging Economies Pledge New Stimulus to Tackle Global Slump

By Ben Sills

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Finance ministers from emerging economies said they'd take new measures to tackle the global economic slowdown at a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 nations meeting in Sao Paulo yesterday.

Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC nations, plan coordinated measures to increase trade and capital flows between their economies, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in an interview. Mexican Deputy Finance Minister Alejandro Werner said slower economic growth and lower food and commodity prices justify cutting interest rates.

The ministers are meeting amid evidence the financial crisis that is pushing the world's biggest industrialized economies into recession is dragging down growth in Asia and Latin America. India, Russia and Brazil have already injected funds into commercial banks and South Korea last week unveiled a 14 trillion won ($10.8 billion) fiscal stimulus plan.

``This is a global crisis and demands global solutions,'' Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told delegates. ``The participation of the developing world is essential.''

Finance ministers and central bankers from the G-20 are meeting in Sao Paulo to lay the groundwork for a Nov. 15 heads of state summit in Washington. The meeting concludes today.

``Finance ministers of BRIC countries have worked out measures for the near future,'' Kudrin said yesterday. ``We have agreed that we can jointly increase trade and capital flows. The major thing is that we are prepared to coordinate.''

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is forecasting that the U.K., Japan, the euro region and the U.K. economies will all contract next year, their first simultaneous recessions since the Second World War. With slower growth damping inflationary pressures, central banks are likely to cut borrowing costs further, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said.

``There are ongoing conversations about who plans to do what when'' on interest rates, Flaherty said. ``I expect that these discussions will lead to some degree of coordinated action.''

Canada's central bank joined the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England in an unprecedented coordinated interest rate cut on Oct. 8 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sent credit markets into seizure. The Reserve Bank of India on Nov. 1 lowered its main interest rate for the second time in two weeks while China cut its key interest rate for the third time in two months on Oct. 29.

``We are closely watching the development of the financial crisis and the situation regarding global activity,'' Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, said yesterday. ``If China can maintain domestic demand, it's helpful for global stability.''

Government Spending

Calls from the IMF and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown for coordinated fiscal stimulus will probably fail to win backing from the group because some countries are concerned about increasing public spending, Flaherty said.

``Ideally that would be so -- it's just not likely to happen,'' Flaherty said. ``Some countries feel that they are more constrained than others.''

China's willingness to stimulate its economy may play an important role in supporting world growth, Flaherty said. China's economy grew at the slowest pace in five years in the three months through September as export orders shrank and industrial production waned.

``Chinese authorities talked about having a strong fiscal expansion,'' World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a briefing yesterday. ``China is in a very good position.''

Companies from Paris to Mexico City are feeling the heat as credit dries up. PSA Peugeot Citroen is cutting staff in China, Mexican homebuilder Consorcio Ara SAB's middle-class clients are struggling to raise home-loans and Brazilian aircraft maker, Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, slashed its 2009 forecast for deliveries by a quarter.

``Clearly, a lower interest rate would be very favorable to stimulate aggregate demand and to lessen the impact of the international crisis,'' said Mexico's Werner, a former central bank economist.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sills in Madrid at bsills@bloomberg.net