Restoring the ailing world economy will top a long agenda of pressing issues to be discussed between British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama next week, an official said Friday. "The economy is going to be the number one issue for both him and President Obama," a senior British official told reporters ahead of Brown's visit to the White House on Tuesday.
The leaders of the two trans-Atlantic allies will also focus on the upcoming G20 meeting to be chaired by the British prime minister in London on April 2. A British economic team has already visited the United States a few times to start building ties with the new Obama administration.
"There needs to be a very strong, shared agenda between the UK and the US going forward to the summit," the official said, saying Brown would be putting forward ideas for "cleaning up and reforming the world of finance." "We think the time has come to reshape the IMF and the World Bank, and probably the regional development banks come into this as well, reshape them for this century ... We want to produce some ideas that people can work on."
Britain and the United States have already unveiled stimulus packages in a bid to kickstart their economies amid the global economic downturn. "Jobs and returning to growth are the things most on our heads of governments' minds," the official said in Washington.
"For the UK side I think we are confident that the two leaders will emerge from that discussion on Tuesday with a clear message that we recognise the need in this area for a global approach for a global solutions to the huge problems that we face in the economic and financial area," the British official said. Global leaders are also concerned about helping the world's poorest countries weather the economic storm.
"So to our minds that requires more resources from the International Monetary Fund in particular to enable them to have the firepower to help these countries," the British official said here. European G20 leaders agreed on Sunday that the IMF should have at least 500 billion dollars to prevent future financial crises.
Brown would also be seeking US support against any move towards protectionism and to send a "message of confidence to the markets." "An important item for the London meeting is going to be reaffirming the importance of keeping markets and investment open around the world as we recover," the official said.
"And sending a very clear, unambiguous signal on that is very important to our government and I think it's going to be important to the government here." There would also be strong emphasis in the summit on what the official dubbed "greening the recovery." "We are very seized of the importance of not allowing our current economic crisis to divert us from what is needed in relation to climate change."