By David Lawder and Aftab Ahmed
Gandhinagar, India (Reuters) – United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday she was “eager” to work with China on areas of mutual interest, including debt restructuring in poor countries and multilateral development banks that needed to be reformed before they could consider increasing capital.
In a news conference ahead of the 20 financial group meeting, Yellen said her visit to Beijing last week had Helping the U.S.-China relationship establish a “more solid foundation,” the world’s two largest economies have an obligation to the world to “cooperate in areas of mutual concern.”
“There is still a lot of work to be done. But I believe this visit is an important start,” Yellen said. “I’m eager to build on the foundation we’ve laid in Beijing and mobilize for further action.”
Concerns remain about China’s unfair trade practices, prompting Washington to impose tariffs on Beijing. “These issues really haven’t been addressed,” she said. Yellen said
U.S. companies want to see an environment where they can “invest in China and thrive.”
Yellen said Washington would continue to cut off Russia’s access to the military equipment and technology Moscow needs to invade Ukraine.
“One of our core goals this year is to combat Russia’s efforts to evade sanctions” our sanctions. Our coalition is building on actions taken in recent months to combat these activities,” she added.
India, which is chairing the G2021 this year, Russia has sought a largely neutral stance on the war, generally refusing to blame Moscow for the invasion launched last February, urging a diplomatic solution and dramatically increasing purchases of Russian oil despite Western attempts to squeeze Moscow .
Yellen said she would continue to push for “full and timely engagement” at the G20 meeting in Gandhinagar, in the northwest Indian state of Gujarat “.
She said she discussed Zambia’s restructuring with her Chinese counterparts and that differences were overcome despite prolonged negotiations.
“Instead of starting from scratch each time, we should apply the common principles we agreed upon in the Zambia case in other contexts. We must go faster,” Yellen said, adding Said she hoped the debt treatments of Sri Lanka and Ghana would be completed quickly so that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) could move forward with initial lending program reviews this fall.
Borrower countries and other stakeholders need a debt restructuring “user’s guide” to clarify the process, she said.
Yellen said the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust Fund, which provides zero-interest loans to the world’s poorest countries, needs to be on a stronger financial footing. She said the U.S. Treasury Department stood ready to assist the IMF in considering options in this regard, including using internal funding resources.
‘Better Banks’
Yellen also laid out a series of next steps for the development of the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, but expressed concern for these institutions Any exploration of capital can only be achieved by implementing reforms aimed at expanding its role beyond poverty reduction to address global challenges such as climate change and pandemics.
“We should be building better banks, not just bigger banks,” Yellen said.
She reiterated her estimate that MDBs could collectively increase their internal resources within a decade through balance sheet reforms currently underway or under consideration 20 billion dollar loan. She said they could take this further by implementing the recommendations in last year’s G20 capital adequacy framework report.
Among other World Bank reform steps, Yellen said she was pushing for a new set of principles that would allow the “targeted use” of the Bank’s concessional financing to address global challenges, including Climate change and measures to increase such resources.
She said she wanted the World Bank to explore lending options to subsovereign and suprasovereign borrowers, such as the COVAX vaccine program.
Yellen says US is committed to implementing global corporate minimum tax deal reached on despite no action by US Congress. She said negotiations on the technical details of the deal’s first pillar – the redistribution of taxing powers to large multinationals, including Big Tech – were “very close” to completion.
