 Good afternoon to you all. I'm Victor Halberstadt. I'm the moderator of this session which is aptly titled, The Great Contraction. I thought I was doing pretty well. Is this better? Good. I thought I had this wonderful opening sentence which I wanted to mention to you that the title of this session, The Great Contraction, sounds a bit like the Great Train Robbery. But in fact, what we are discussing here is a very major, major issue. Are we able to avoid a continuation of a deep recession? Are we able to prevent another financial crisis? For that, we have a very able panel, very experienced, very expert and very little introduction is required. On my left is Jumin of the IMF. Next to him is Bill Rhodes, who is the only one in this room probably who has published a book in the last two months which I'm pitching for you. Vincent van Quickenborn, who is a Belgian minister and it's interesting. He and I sat on a panel in Dali on a year ago and he told me that Belgium was about to form a new government. And you know what? It still isn't there 12 months later. Victor Chiu, an entrepreneur from Hong Kong and a worldwide known person and Mr. Singh, a member of parliament from India, all very expert. We will talk about everything, but we will do it very disciplined. We will talk about deleveraging. We will talk about policy tools. We will talk about volatility. We will talk about, I guess, about political costs of economic change and you will be able to say afterwards that you felt that the panel was either bullish or bearish. But we have only 60 minutes, so we will be very disciplined. Initially each of the panelists will speak three or four minutes at a max and we will try to have some Q&A with the room. Let me quickly say one thing about the framework of our situation. Question is, is there a second great contraction out there? That's the title of the session. Or, as I am inclined to think, did we never finish with the first great contraction that started four years ago in 2007 with the housing bubble in the United States? We had at that time nearly a decade of prosperity financed by debt. And now we need to pay this down, and obviously that was never going to happen over the course of two years, and indeed it didn't. And of course, there was lots of transfer of debt from the private sector, in fact, to the public sector, and all of that is now under serious scrutiny. In the meantime, there has been some temporary relief for some asset markets, see what happened to equities over the past two years. But in fact, we are now in a situation in the Western world, in Europe and in the United States, a rather worrying situation, as some might say, where we have to place a large amount of faith in the ability and the capacity of politicians to haul us out of the very difficult situation we are in. And the best I think we can hope for in the West is a slow grind out of that hole. Now, if we look at this situation, which I have just very briefly summarized, it's of course most of all very important to understand where the world economy currently is, and there is no better guide on that than Jule Min. Well, thank you, but you give me only three minutes, that would be very, very tough. The overall picture, I would say, since August, we say markets are very much volatiles, but within the volatile, what we thought is we saw global capital relocation. All this money moved out to risky assets and moving to the safe assets. So that's the reason the U.S. bonds market yields so low, 10-year bonds lower 2 percent now, and all these risky assets, capital market, particularly banking sector, also we see the capital outflow. But meanwhile, also we see capital move out of the dollar assets because concerns about the further weakening of the dollar. So then we see the gold price increase, we see Swiss francs, and we see Japanese yen, further strengths because people looking for the HIF7, and commodity prices very volatiles, more or less, and the state in the high price. So this is a very volatile market, and the question is obviously what will be the situation in the next few months in the futures. Underline is the huge volatility, there are a few concerns. The first concern is the whether the European sovereign crisis will expand continuing to the banking crisis, I think that's the one key issue. The second issue is whether the U.S. deficit crisis will further extend to slow down the U.S. economic growth and move into the double dip. And the third overall issue exactly concerns whether we're moving into another bill of contractions, that's mean the deleveraging process will go further or stop. But I would say the current, if you're looking for S&P 500, it dropped 25% already. So actually it's a fully discounted market, the bad news already. But if you talk about the three concerns, all those concerns are still remaining there, because people still concern the banking sector in Europe, and the growth particularly slowed down in the United States, and the concern the balance is not very healthy, particularly in government sector, in household sector, in banking sector, in some areas in corporate sector as well. Within all those concerns, I would say the market will be continuously very volatile in the near futures. But it does not necessarily mean we're going into the big contraction. It seems to me we haven't not or did not finish the first round of deleveraging. If you compare today with 2008, if you're looking for the advanced economy, the household balances are still very bad, still in very high level. In the financial sector, the balances are still very high. Capital ratio is a little better, but the overall still weak. And the further, if you compare today with 2008, the government balance is deteriorating dramatically. But the good news is the corporate sector balances, it's much better. So the currently further deleveraging, repair the balances, obviously, is a key issue for all the sector of the war today. If we can do that, we'll be able to stop the financial volatility and turmoil, and prevent the further financial crisis. But we need a lot of policy actions. I'll stop here. Thank you. Thank you, Xiumen. It almost raises the question, which we can address later, whether volatility is the new norm. I mean, this enormous volatility. We'll get to that a bit later. Vincent from Quick and Born, what is Europe going to do about this? Or what should it do about it? Well, I think that the current crisis today in Europe really shows us the structural flaws that there are to the foundations of the European Union. Robert Mandela, famous Nobel Prize winner of economy, once said, the European Union should be like ABC. A, with a monetary union, B, a fiscal union, and C, political union. The problem is that we had the A, but we're missing the B and the C. And the main problem is that when we created a monetary union not so long ago, we set up agreements amongst member states on inflation, on debt, on deficits. And the first countries not to obey to those rules were the biggest countries of Europe. That was Germany. That was France. And of course, it should not come as a surprise that on small countries like Greece and others do not respect neither the rules. What we've seen since 2008 is, in fact, we hobbled from short-term measures to other short-term measures. First, we tried to fix the problem in Greece. Then we tried to fix the problem in other countries. Then we set up a temporary structure. Now it has become the structural fund or European financial stability facility. But I do think that more of those short-term measures will not ease and calm the markets. What we need are structural reforms. And the structural reforms is what we need is, the path is very clear. Either it's unity or it's divorce. And divorce of Europe will come at a huge risk. That's like opening the Pandora's box. Unity, that means that we should start the beginning of what is called the United States of Europe. And that holds two essential elements. First of all, create a market of Euro bonds. That means that you create a global European bond market with attraction. And the advantage of that system is that you lower the borrowing costs for member states. And secondly, you create a large market that even has an advantage to the United States. Because we in the Eurozone, when you compare it to the T bonds, we have a debt of about 85 percent, whereas the States is close to the 100 percent. And our deficit in Europe is close to 4 percent, where in the States it's 9 percent. So I think then you create a market, a huge market. You should combine that with a second element. And that is an element that has been proposed by the Dutch people. That is the creation or by Mr. Trichet from the ECB. That's the creation of what we call a European Minister of Finance. That's somebody, a person, an institution that is able to intervene in an individual country when it's not willing to obey to the rules. Instead, that means, in fact, that you take sovereignty out of that country and that you replace it by that institution. So these two elements will lead us to a structural solution for the problems that we have. Of course, in between, in between, Vincent, this sounds fine. I mean, for some people, this is apple pie of motherhood. You can't be against it. But it's not going to happen overnight. It will take many years. So what are the policy actions required now? Of course, on the short term, the biggest problem at the moment are two problems. First of all, Greece. And there you have to find a solution. And some people, I think, too easily talk about just default, structural default, unstructured default. I think this would be led to lead to a huge crisis in Europe, because there's always the risk of contagion. And if Greece goes into default, structured or not structured default, immediately you look at other countries. So this is very riskful to think so. So I hope that the IMF, with the Troika, with the European Union, when it comes back, goes back to Greece, finds a solution, because that is what we need. Secondly, I think there is, of course, the banking crisis. The banking crisis in Europe today is different from that it went in 2008. It has to do with the fact that all those countries, the PICS countries, so-called PICS countries, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, we need to control that contamination so that we could help. But I think it's a problem of individual banks. And you cannot say that the whole European banking system is attacked by that. So on the long term, these are the solutions, Victor, but we need to take the steps for them as soon as possible. On the short term, of course, looking at Greece and trying to control the problem with Greece, but a default is not an option. Because if you default a country, the country has to leave the eurozone and then it has to leave the European Union. That's what an investment bank said lately, and I do think that this leads to an enormous problem. Thank you, Vincent. I turn to the Indian Member of Parliament, Mr. Singh. Now, all of these discussions in the United States about that ceiling, government expenditure, and in Europe about the eurozone and these discussions about contraction do sound a bit alien, I guess, to someone sitting in Parliament in India because you have a booming economy and you have none of these problems. Are you worried about the contagion? Well, you know, I think that it would be somewhat of an exaggeration to say that we are happily sitting with high rates of growth. Our rates have also tended to plateau off. We had a very animated discussion in Parliament on whether emerging markets in general and some large Asian countries can escape the consequences of the European contagion, particularly when you begin to see a multidiscipline and not necessarily a coherence of global prescriptions on the broader issue of inflation versus growth, on the issues of whether growth should be investment-led or consumption-led, on what kind of growth policies will not lead to jobless growth, on the question of fiscal rectitude coming in earlier than later and before demand gets stifled. So I think with all this conflicting kind of prescriptions, which are now being made available to us, we see that emerging markets would face typically four kinds of problems. The first, of course, is clearly access to global capital and the cost of the access to global capital, whether that would get seriously compromised for sustaining our high rates of growth. Second, how would exports behave in an environment where there's a growing fear of protectionism, raising issues, for instance, of outsourcing, even though that may be the most efficient way in which economic benefits are going to be optimized. Third, I think how is one to handle exchange rate volatility? Children allow exchange rates in emerging markets to go up and down as exchange rates become more and more volatile, and what are the consequences in terms of some medium-term planning particularly for exports. And finally, how does one begin to learn a lesson from what is happening in the rest of the world in regard to part of the world saying go in for fiscal rectitude now because you may have a problem later? How does one balance the short-term with the medium-term? When I say all this, I think as we plan for the next five years, trying to achieve what we achieved in the last five years, namely an average rate of growth of around 8 percent of GDP, how do we sustain this while trying to balance these four asymmetries, which Victor I mentioned. We recognize that perhaps these uncertainties are the new normalcy with which emerging markets will have to live with, but certainly we would need to reconcile not only from the viewpoint of sustaining our high rates of growth that you have achieved, but being a contributor to a global solution and not adding to that problem. Thank you, Mr. Singh. Victor Chu, the real economy, that's where you live, right? Last year at the Summer Davos meeting in Tianjin, I was asked whether it was the beginning of the end of the financial crisis or whether it was the end of the beginning. And of course, we now know the answer. I mean, the crisis never went away. It's just getting more complex as we proceed. I think it is common ground that the next two or three years will be extremely challenging. But I would like to suggest that as business, as entrepreneurs, we should look ahead to the next cycle. The silver lining is that we will be taking a lot of painful medicine in the next two or three years, but institutions, banks, regulatory infrastructure will be leaner and stronger. And indeed, big companies are still very liquid. We had a survey at the recent International Business Council meeting. Most of us are still looking for growth, and most of us are not looking to cut costs in any major way. So big companies, I think, are still very much okay. Where it will be heard very badly is SMEs around the world. And I think here, in terms of policy options, we have to ensure that the new regulatory changes will really make sure that SMEs can survive. In terms of classification of assets loaned to SMEs could be given more favorable treatment. But also in terms of European and American SMEs, Asia is still growing despite all the difficulties in India, in China, and the rest of the world is Asia. So if one is SME with a good track record, with a good product or good service, one should always really look out to Asia for growth, for defensive reasons. But obviously, being SME reaching out by yourself will be difficult, because emerging markets, including India and China, could be a difficult market to crack if you're a small company. So one would have to look for good partners. And provided one can look for partners and create the right synergy, I think it could be win-win. The growing market, middle-class market in China and India will require better services, different products in a new cycle of world creation. And that's where some of the European SMEs and American SMEs can ideally provide. And I think the other point I like to make is, despite all the difficulty, we have to make sure that the discussions on the multilateral trading system have not been forgotten, because that is the easiest thing to forget. And we have to remember that so far the WTO system is the fairest, the most nondiscriminatory for countries around the world, the most democratic, I would say. So I think we have to make sure that there could be new momentum being injected in those discussions. And finally, of course, the difficulty that we have today is really the difficulty in politics, the lack of political leadership, and also the political process in the West, which makes it very difficult to bite the bullet, to make strategic decisions. And I hope with the difficulty that we have now, ordinary people will lose patience to the impulse in the political process. People wake up philosophically that we have to sacrifice in order to maintain the long-term survival of our economy. And that sentiment can be reflected onto the political circles, to allow the political leaders to make the necessary strategic decision, however painful they may be. Thank you, Victor. Any advice for the Europeans? For me? I think we have to go back to basics. We have to believe that prudence, budget, and financial management is the only way to go. And given time, we will get back. But without a prudence in budgetary and fiscal management, we are only going down a slow path for even worse problems to come. Yeah, sure, sure. You know, the job for the fund is just to give other people advices. So I just cannot help giving our European friends some advices. I absolutely agree with you. You see, the long-term structure is important for Europe. But the short-term are also agree with the banking crisis or potential crisis, the most urgent issues I think the European facing today. So as I mentioned today, if you're looking for the European financial crisis, it's really to prevent the sovereign risk containing to the banking crisis. So at this particular moment, the banking recapitalization and make sure the banking sector stays sovereign and stable is absolutely important for today. So European politicians have to make decisive policy to make sure the banking sector and the state sounds and stable. I will say this is the most important issue today for European financial sector. Thank you. We will talk about Europe in a moment again. While we are sitting here, actually just before we came in, major European banks were downgraded by the rating agencies. Three, actually two large French banks and a third on watch. And when we leave this session, I think about that time, two leaders of major European countries, Mrs. Merkel and President Sarkozy, will have a conversation over the phone, which for one reason or the other has been announced, so that we all know that they're going to have a phone call. That suggests that there is a major set of threats very nearby relating to the banking sector. I mean, there's no better person to comment on that, actually, than Bill Rhodes, who published a book, as I already mentioned before, and he dealt with all the crisis in our lifetime. But this one, you haven't touched on, you didn't even predict it, Bill. Well, I did a post script in my book, which came out a couple of months ago, and I basically put forth five points that I tried to convince my friends in Europe, in Brussels, the various politicians, the central bankers, and the commercial bankers, that they ought to take a look at, because the emerging markets in Latin American Asia in the 80s and 90s went through a series of debt crises, and they turned around their economies, and they learned the hard way. Unfortunately, the Europeans said, well, we're different. We're mature economies. We're not emerging market economies, so we don't have to do these. And what they were is, first of all, contagion. This is a word that nobody remembered in Europe, but we learned to live with it in Latin America, and we saw it in Asia. And this was, I think, a point that the Europeans didn't want to recognize when Greece first got into trouble, which was in December 2009. It was already into trouble, but it was first announced in December 2009 by Papandre when he took office, the Prime Minister of Greece. And the Europeans didn't want to see that there could be contagion. Well, what do we have now? We have Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and we have the European Central Bank intervening in those markets, but also buying bonds of Spain and Italy, the third and fourth largest economies. I think, second of all, is the question of leadership. And we've seen that lacking because the politicians in Europe are bickering, arguing with each other all over the place in the sense of what they're going to do. And by the way, that telephone call is not only going to be Sarkozy and Merkel. It's supposed to include Prime Minister Papandre, and they're supposed to come out with a statement on Greece. Now, when I walked in the room, I hadn't seen the statement. I don't think you had either Victor, so I don't know what that statement's going to be. But I think another particular area, which is very, very important in all of these crises, and I think my colleague Jumen just commented on it, which relates to timing. You only have so much time to work out a crisis, or it becomes uncontrollable and the losses become substantial. Again, a lesson learned in Latin America and Asia. And unfortunately, in the case of Europe, it's getting on to two years since this crisis began. And what happens talking about the banking system? When you have a sovereign in trouble, it drags in its banks. And when the banking system is in trouble, like it was in Ireland, it drags in the sovereign. So really, what we have in Europe, we have problems with the banks and the sovereigns. And I think that that brings me to the final point here, which is the private sector. One of things I argued for was getting the private sector involved early on in Europe, because the private sector, at least at the beginning of this crisis, held most of the debt. And if you're going to get yourself out of a crisis, again we learned in Latin America and Asia, you've got to get back to the markets. And how do you get back to the markets? The private sector has to take you there. And how are you going to get there? You can't just do it on austerity measures. They're very necessary, as my colleagues have mentioned. But you've got to show a population that there's growth at the end of the tunnel. You can't just have austerity, austerity, austerity. You've got to show that there's growth, which is why the Brady plan was a success in Latin America and other areas, because it showed growth at the end, I think, of the cycle. My Belgian colleague had mentioned steps that were necessary. They've got to move on a fiscal union. They've violated Maastricht and the price and the stability and growth packed almost immediately, which is a terrible example for the other countries. And you can't have a monetary union without some sort of physical counterpart. No one's talked about my own country, the United States, which has a lot of problems. Victor asked me to comment on this before the session began. We're in a period of what I call stagnation. I'd say Europe's there too, where you have minimal growth, one percent or less, and you don't create jobs with that type of growth. And so we have a deficit problem in the United States, witnessed S&P's action downgrading to U.S., but we also have a jobs and growth problem. And we have the structure which Europe does not have to solve it. The question is, do the United States have the will to do it? And I think this so-called super commission was put together in Congress, has to come up with some recommendations on cutting back on the deficit, if not their automatic cuts built in. I think at the end of the day that will happen. President Obama announced a new stimulus program. I don't think he's got to get it all through, he'll get parts of it through. But all of these things have to take place, and there's a sense of urgency and timing. And nobody here in this group has mentioned the G20. The G20 was supposed to replace the G7. It was supposed to have, as its prime target, sustained growth. And we haven't seen much out of the G7. I was in Korea with that meeting last November, and nothing happened. Now we have one in France in November. And I think the G7 has to agree on implementation of a lot of these policies, because we're in an interlinked world today. You can't have a one-off situation, because the world is too small. Markets move in nanoseconds. So there has to be some understanding and coordination and cooperation, which was mentioned by Premier Wenjibow this morning on a number of issues, whether it be regulation, currency wars, trade, et cetera. But the banks are key. And you can't overload the banks with too much regulation. They have to raise capital. European banks, a number of them, have to. We had tough stress tests that the U.S. Treasury and the regulators put on the U.S. banks two years ago, and it worked. Substantial amounts of capital were raised. We all know what happened with the first stress tests in Europe. All the Irish banks were passed. Most of the Cajas, the savings in Spain were passed, and a number of the Landes banks who then had to go back and recapitalize in Germany. So I think we are fortunate that we had tough stress testing. And I think Jumen and the IMF have taken the guard, have taken a stand that you need to move ahead and raise capital. But in addition to raising capital, it is very important that the politicians put forth a structure that can function in Europe and into the United States, that the politicians move on both the deficit and jobs and growth. Because otherwise, we are going to have real problems. And let me tell you, my friends from Asia, our economies are so interlinked that Asia and other areas of the world can't stay out of it. So we are in this thing together, and we got to work it out together. And we have an IMF World Bank meeting coming up in less than two weeks. And I think these are going to be the prime issues on the table. Thank you, Bill. Now, as I said before, you have been through many of these crises as an advising banker. If you were to be in on the call, this Mrs. Merkel, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Papandreo, what would be the two action steps which you would recommend to them, things to do now? I think, first of all, nothing is going to happen in Greece on the positive side unless the Greek government is prepared and able to carry forth the program that they agreed to on the 21st of July. Because you can put all the funding you want in there, but they have to move ahead on tax collections, privatizations, and austerity alone won't do it. You have to have income, and you have to show a path to growth. I think at the same time, I think the Europeans have got to take a look again in the troika, which the IMF is part, the European Central Bank and the EU, is to whether the interest rates and the loan maturities are sufficient to help Greece out. But at the end of the day, Greece has got to do its part, and it's got to implement the program. And if it doesn't implement it, then you're going to have to take additional measures. And what you end up doing is what are you going to do with the debt? Are you going to have debt forgiveness? How are you going to handle it? Are you going to put a Marshall Plan in there? Are you going to push Greece out? What's going to happen? So the key here is the ability of this government in Greece to implement the program that it has agreed upon and to get the proper support from Europe. In a few minutes we may talk about other countries. Let me first turn to the audience to see whether there are very brief questions from any of you. If so, please raise your hand. You'll get a microphone. Identify yourself. Only questions, I'm afraid. No statements, though they will be very interesting, those statements. Who? Gentlemen up there. I'm a journalist from Xinhua News Agency, and I would like to ask a question to Mr. Just now, you've mentioned the danger of a double dip. You said there's the possibility of a double dip in the world economy. But with the prospects for further concertive easing in the US, what is the likely prospect going to be for China or other emerging economies? What new concerns or impacts will there be for economies like us? Now, Wenjiabao has talked of the need for a healthy and stable monetary policy. This is a change of direction. If we talk about improving the quality and model of Chinese economic growth, then what are we to do? Thank you very much for your question. Sorry, I will reply in Chinese. I might as well reply in Chinese to a question in Chinese. Well, it's certainly not a trivial question that you've raised. And Mr. Singer has answered part of it already. Will excessive volatility in the continent of Europe affect China and other emerging economies? That's a very interesting issue. The potential spread, signs of a potential spread across the world. There's much greater volatility in Europe, but so far there's a disconnect between volatility there and in Asia. Now, what used to happen is a little risk, a little bit of volatility in Europe or the US would cause tenfold, a hundredfold volatility in Asia. This time it's different. This time it's the opposite. For the first time in 50 years, volatility and crises in developed economies are having a negative impact on developing and emerging economies, but it's a much more limited impact. Now, that is interesting, but there is no reason for the emerging economies to think that they're isolated from this. Several reasons for that. Firstly, the world's economy is at a particularly interesting position of low interest rates and high volatility. This is quite unusual. There's higher volatility than prior to 07 and 08. So at the moment it's low rates around the world, which means that there's a lot of capital flows going around the world, which will cause difficulties for attempts at deleveraging. Now, related to that point number two, as of last year, less developed and emerging economies accounted for 47.8% of the world economy in PPP terms, but in financial terms they only accounted for 19% of the world capital markets. So they will be moving in a more marketized direction led by the capital markets that we seem to be on the cusp of a structural change in the world economy. With low rates and high levels of liquidity, there's still ample scope for repercussions in China. Now, thirdly, there is a new risk of excessive growth in loans. Growth in GDP compared to growth in loans was generally less than 100% prior to the crisis, whereas in China it was 200%. In Turkey it's 420% at the moment. So there's a new round of loan growth. To a large extent driven by governments attempting to spark off economic growth, but at a time of a drop in economic growth, this growth in loans is a large potential risk given the potential problems of quality of these loans. So what we need in the developed world is decisive action against a potential crisis by governments. In the developing world we need strong measures to prevent a potential future crisis. So a whole new set of issues almost, very important ones. Victor Chu, would you like to react to this? Because it did raise a few very important issues which you are immediately involved with. Yes, that helps. Absolutely. I think we could be in the midst of a much bigger problem. If strong clinical reforms are not put in place very soon. Unfortunately what Bill says is interesting because the political process and the institutional process cannot react in crisis management the way the private sector is able to. That's also a difficult situation. I think out of all that, one interesting process is the internationalization of the RMB. From an investor's point of view, from a saver's point of view, people now have a chance to invest in offshore RMB deposit because where you have the yen, the dollar, and the euro, the three major currency or going through extreme volatility, the haven actually is now this international offshore RMB deposit. That's for people on the street. You can now go to Bank of China, New York, and Washington and change US dollar for RMB. At least in a limited way you can protect your savings. Hopefully in the longer term that could also give governments another alternative in putting their reserve portfolio. Thank you very much. Before I ask one or two more questions to the panel, let me see in the room who would like to raise a question. Yes, there's a lady here on row four and lady in the back on third row from the back. Thank you very much. I'd like to ask a question to Jumin. I'm from the economic observer. If we take the background, which is low growth in Europe in the US second half of last year, and the possibility of a double dip, what factors do you think will be available to drive future growth? Because I can speak Chinese. This is why I get so many questions. Everybody is concerned about whether we're going to have a double dip. Personally I do not believe so. Global economy is slowing down, especially the overall developed economies is declining, slowing down very rapidly. For example, the US economy from the expected 3% GDP growth to mere 1.5%, 1.8%. So people may have different forecasts, but very fast declining. At the same time, the emerging markets growth rate is also been slowing down for India, for China, etc., etc., but the economy is still growing at a slower pace. Right now the overall economy has now been tremendously impacted in a structural way. Based on the standard, if one economy for two quarters in a row have a negative growth, we call that an entry into recession. But right now, even for the developed economy, they do not have the two quarters in a row negative growth. So this is why we do not believe we're going to have to see the double dip. For one precondition, right now we are indeed in a very key moment, an urgent period in the crisis. If the government fails to adopt decisive effective measures, it's still possible for us to slide into recession. So this is a very important point. The main demand is two things, two four. The emerging economy and developing the economy need to stimulate their internal domestic consumption. Developed economy will also need through traditional physical stimulation demand to private consumption to investment. So to transform this process before the global economy can enjoy a global balance of momentum or motive force of growth. Thank you, Bill. Yes. I would just add to that by a couple of things. First of all, nobody's mentioned Japan here. We're the third largest economy. We've talked about Europe. We've talked about China. We've talked about India, the United States. But I think it's very important to understand that Japan has its growth problems also, which I think is adding to the problem. Jumen has talked about the question of a number of the emerging market economy. So is Minister Singh. And I think it's very important that we talk about inflation here too, which has impacted a number of the emerging markets. Because what we're seeing is inflation in both food and energy. Oil is still over $80 a barrel. We've seen food inflation here. Even in the United States, food prices have increased over 4%, which is a lot for the U.S. And so I think it is a very sensitive, difficult period because the so-called, I say so-called mature economies need to basically work on both deficits and jobs and growth. But in the emerging markets, they've got to be very careful on the inflationary side. And, as has been pointed out by Jumen and others here, they've got to be very careful on the over-leveraging. This is why I go back to the importance of this meeting of the G20, which we're going to see in Khan. So you get all sides together and decide how are we going to work on sustained growth without getting into currency wars? We just saw the Swiss peg there, currency to the euro and trade wars and regulatory arbitrage on the regulatory side. So all these things are building up to the IMF World Bank meetings and the meeting of the G20 in Khan. And I think these are decisive moments for where the world economy is going to go. So timing is of the essence that the steps all of us are talking about in this panel are really taken and taken fairly rapidly. Bill, given the uncertainty, which is now very widely spread and the worries and the threats, would it have been rational to bring the G20 meeting forward from November to the time of the Washington meeting in two weeks? What is the use of doing this in two steps while there's every day major, major concern among the electorates, among people who have jobs or don't have jobs, among banks, among markets? I mean, what is this? I think you're absolutely correct. And substituting a finance minister's meeting for heads of state meeting doesn't work because the ultimate authority is with the heads of state and you're absolutely correct. Why wait until November to do it? It should be brought ahead because we learned that in 2008. Everything was just behind time. We talk about in the automobile business just in time production, but what we're dealing with with the politicians here is just behind time. So I think you're absolutely correct. And if we're going to make a recommendation of this panel, I for one would back your suggestion. We ought to move it ahead. And instead of having the finance ministers and central bank heads together in two weeks in Washington, the IMF World Bank meetings, we should do something with the heads of state because they have the ultimate power along with parliaments to take these decisions, not the finance ministers and the central bank heads. Minister Singh. Can I add to your question, Bill, by asking you two things which have been discussed widely certainly in India? Namely, has G20 run out of steam? I mean, in a sense, G20 two years ago, when it began to address this crisis, left some of the important structural issues needed to be addressed unanswered. I think part of the reason why we began this discussion was that the first crisis is lingering, and the G20 in recent months seems to be flagging and run out of steam. So how does an invest new leadership in the G20 decision-making process? Well, I would say, first of all, very briefly, Bill, I had, first of all, the only meeting that I saw that really produced anything in the G20 was a London meeting where you were in the depth of the crisis at the great recession. And I think they have the ability to do so, and the time that the act is now. That's why I say, get them together. You have all the questions, growth, regulation, exchange rates, trade that really need to be spoken to. And if the G20 can't come up with some solutions, then you've got to wonder if they're going to go to the way of the G7, which doesn't seem to do much either. Thank you. Jumin, I would almost ask you about this, given your past. Is that appropriate? About the G20? Oh, G20. Yeah, I think the G20, currently, the global cooperation obviously is the most important issues. Yes. Because the crisis more expanded to all these different areas. So we're very much looking forward that G20 can play key role and then bring the party together and find the real solution. But they also agree with you for the short term, because the concerns on the growth, concerns on the job, concerns on the market, volatilities are the key issue today. And I hope the G20 will come up with some real solutions for those issues. Thank you. There was a question in the back, fourth row from the back, I believe, lady. And then in the middle over there, also in the back. Hi, I'm Michelle Walker with the World Policy Institute. I'm a young global leader. Mr. Chu and Mr. Rhodes both referenced very briefly the regulatory changes that are coming and in the air. At the beginning of the crisis, there was a lot of talk about international coordination on supervision, regulation, standards. We haven't heard as much recently. I'd like your thoughts on where specifically the most international cooperation is needed and what you think the most important changes are that need to happen. I will ask the panel to react to that in the final round, because we have about 10 minutes left. It will go a little over time. There's another session in this same room. So I'm collecting brief questions in the back there. Well, thank you. I'm from China Daily. Well, one question to go to Mr. Chu. Well, as you mentioned earlier, that the emerging economy should take measures timely to prevent potential risks, because your gross is largely driven by the long glows. So what kind of measures, what kind of suggestions you can offer, especially for China? Thank you. Thank you. A question on the front row. Alessandro Magnoli Bocchi, with China Investment Company. A quick question if I understand the panel is kind of agreeing on a model through scenario. I just want to understand if that's what you have in mind. Or another way of asking the question is in two years, when the dust settled, what world will we have? We will have seen these orderly adjustments. We'll have more currencies or is a model through. And how do you see the situation evolving? Thank you. You want to make a quick response to that? Yes. Yeah, I would like to take two more questions and then come back to each of you. There was a lady in the back, in the middle, and a gentleman in the back. First lady here in the middle, then a gentleman all the way in the back. It's a white shirt. And then there was a, if everyone is very brief, he can squeeze in a few more questions. A question for Zhu Ming. Today ADP adjusted downward its focus about the Asia, including China's economic growth, because it doesn't believe the situation is very okay. And this circumstances because China being a very important engine for global economic recovery, will that affect the global economy? Some people just mentioned the exchange rate fluctuation, because China adopts a kind of a fixed exchange rate policy. So what will be the future scenario? Thank you. Each one question, gentleman in the back and then gentleman over there. Gentleman's white shirt and then blueish shirt. Yes. Another question for Mr. Zhu Ming. Today, Premier Wen Jiabao at the forum talk about his question only. Does China need to purchase the transfer rates in Europe? Do you think this is a good timing for China to do that? What can the BRICS as an organization do to save the world economy? Thank you. As the author of the BRICS would say, it's not an organization. Yeah, I mean as a group of countries then, as a group. Because they have a meeting next week in Washington, I heard. Yeah, thank you. The panel will react to that. One final question. Gentleman here right in the middle. White shirt. Question only please. What happens if Greece can't actually meet the terms of the bailout? Question mark. Yes. Thank you. I'm returning to the panel. Everyone has two and a half minutes. We will go in reverse order from the start. So we will start with Bill Rhodes. Do you want us to answer any of those questions? Yes, you could raise other questions, Bill. Well, I would just take the one which I think is very important. Which is on the regulatory situation because we came out of this great recession and there were all sorts of promises made by G20 countries, group of seven, about the need for cooperation, coordination in capital requirements and other measures to strengthen the world financial system. And unfortunately, not every country but a lot of countries seem to be going their own route because we have an agreement with the Basel committee called Basel 3. But then the head of the Basel committee says these are minimal standards and every country is free to add on if they want. And so what we're getting is we're getting different plans in different countries to how to implement Basel 3. And we're in an interlink world, as I said earlier, and that goes for the financial system and the banking system. And so if we're not careful and we don't really have an equal playing field, we're going to get regulatory arbitrage where the country with the least amount of capital requirements and regulation is where a lot of institutions will go and you're going to have more shadow banking which is uncontrolled by the regulators than we had before. So I think one of the urgent points now is that needs to be taken up by Basel and the financial stability board in the G20 is to get back to the promise that they made that we were going to get international cooperation and coordination in the implementation of these new capital rules. And one of the things we have to keep in mind is we do need increased capital in the banking system and in the financial system in general without a doubt. But you can't overburden some of these institutions because then you won't get the lending you need, particularly in the so-called, I say so-called again, mature markets because then you're not going to get the growth. So this is a very, very important subject. I'm glad you asked the question. Thank you, Bill. Victor Chu. I think in terms of the reform of the financial architecture, a lot of progress has been made, but you need a lot of harmonisation too because, of course, different countries have their own different requirements and needs. Different countries too have looked at their own internal system. For example, in Great Britain, the Vickers report has just been published that are quite radical in terms of suggestions of ring fencing, of investment banking and proprietary trading activities from the core banking and retail banking operations. So you see a lot of progress has already been made, a lot of thinking has already been made, but obviously in terms of international harmonised agreed structure, that's yet to come. In terms of the sovereign debt crisis, the difficulties, we all know more or less what needs to be done. Greece needs to observe the agreement and get on with it, and we also know what kind of responsible action that different parts of the world need to do in order to come back to recover. But the political process of many of these countries make it very difficult to deliver those reforms. I mean, that's the worry, and that's why the question from the gentleman here, to say what if Greece does not deliver. Now, so far we have muddled through, but now I think we come to a time that there's no more muddled through. We are facing the ultimate. Now, my hunch is that Greece cannot deliver, and if it delivers the first part, if something will happen down the road, because domestically it is not politically acceptable. So that's where I think we have to think unthinkable, and we hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Thank you, Victor. N. K. Singh. Well, I have just a couple of very brief comments to make. First, that I entirely agree with the general sense that emerging markets cannot isolate themselves and remain unaffected by the global contagion effect, no matter what we do. So I think that in the interest of emerging markets, an orderly adjustment process in the very near term is exceedingly relevant. I'll not make any comment on the European situation, because I entirely agree that perhaps a monetary union without a fiscal union and more than a fiscal union in terms of coordinated action in other fronts perhaps may be, therefore, something which may or may not work. What can the BRICS do together to be able to emulate the crisis? I think that that's an important question, but the BRICS must act as a cohesive group to influence the decision making in the G20 so that we are continued access to global capital on cost, which is affordable, and the fact that access to markets do not get blocked by the growing fear of a protectionist influence. These, I believe, are fundamental to ensure that direct foreign investment and growth rates in these countries are kept at a robust pace. And finally, I just take one point. The most important worry, Victor, which is for a country like India, and perhaps I would say China, is how does one contain, and more than contain, how does one anchor inflationary expectations in a manner that the growth in the short run doesn't get compromised? This is not very easy for us to find an answer. Where does the Balancing Act take place? That we do not kill the growth process by the central bank tightening up its process. It did it 11 times in 10 months, as far as India is concerned, which has hurt investment sentiments very much. How does one contain the genie of inflation, which is out and anchor inflationary expectations in a credible way, which sustains the robust growth process? Thank you. Victor, Vincent, I'm sorry. Yeah, I particularly like the question of the YGL. I'm also a YGL, and we had sessions on Monday and Tuesday on economic growth and the quality of growth. I think that what bankers thought was an incident in 2008, I think is a crisis also of values, and it's important that we bring back values in our economic system. Klaus Schwab this morning talked about the importance of the quality of growth instead of quantity of growth. You should read a book. There's an interesting book, a small book, called The Great Stagnation, written by an American. I think it's one of the best books of this year, and it has to do with the fact that we've consumed in the West the so-called low-hanging fruits of what we have, that's education, land and so on. So we should look at other forms of growth and quality of growth that's for the West. Secondly, I would like to say something on Greece, the question of Greece. I saw that Victor was a little bit, he said, okay, but we should act now. The reason why, as a young European politician, talk about long-term sustainable solutions is because we have a lack of leadership in Europe. If you have three or four or five Presidents in Europe, how can you imagine that you find a solution to a crisis? Therefore, Victor, even if what I've been talking about, the Euro bonds and the solution of the European Finance Minister is a solution on long-term. The gentleman talked about two years, it is something that we should have done two or three years ago. The point that I make is that if you think that with short-term measures we can solve this issue, we're not in for a quick fix, I'm sorry. Probably next year we will back here and discuss this. But if European politicians do not act now, we'll continue to have a problem for decades and that our children will pay. Thank you, Vincent. I think Bill. Just a quick point that I would add on what Victor had asked me earlier on what ought to happen in Europe. One of the things that I mentioned again and again in my book, Banker to the World, talking about all of these crises, is when heads of state make pronouncements, like we saw on July 21st in Europe, they have to set a timetable on when they are going to be able to implement. And one of the things that has been spooking the markets is we have the heads of state, the heads of the European Union in Brussels and a number of central bankers and ministers of finance get up and talk about we're going to do this and that. They do not put a timetable on it and they do not say in what stages they're going to implement it. So when the market sees that, it kills the credibility and therefore you wonder why the markets are moving the way they do. It's basically things we've learned over and over again, but unfortunately Europe is forcing itself to relearn it and it's going to be a very costly process. Thank you, Bill. Finally, Jules-Main, I mean, there are three scenarios, I believe, right? It's the good, the bad, or the ugly, which one is it? Well, I think it would be between the three. The first question is about the modern three. Through, the question is absolutely no. I think in the past two years, as Bill mentioned, as our Vincent mentioned, we observe and the politicians try to murder us through all those issues, but at this moment, as Vick mentioned, room is zero. I don't think there's any room for the politicians to murder us through the current situations. You have to take decisive action today. Otherwise, we run into the process. I think it's become ever clear. Go back to the question for the regulatory reform. I think it's very good questions when crisis come out. So the reform becomes the main issue, but unfortunately, the sovereign debt crisis come up that overshadowed the regulatory frameworks. I would say regulatory framework really achieved a lot of progress, as Bill mentioned, the Basel Street capital ratio bubble, but there's still key issue and finish, as you mentioned, particularly with international cooperation. Number one, the regulatory framework over the cross-border capital flow. We still don't have solution on that one yet. Number two, for the cross-border resolution framework, because today, with the interconnectedness, we all link together. So if some financial issues get into the problem, all the others will get together, but we don't have a cross-border resolution framework. And particularly, this is very important for Europe today. If we don't have that one, it's very difficult to do the capital injection. So number three, another controversial issue is whether we should have financial transaction taxation. There's a lot of debating about that, a lot of support, a lot of disagreements, but I think it's obvious it's important issues. We need to continue to do that. I think this is a fundamental issue, so we need to push the regulatory reform further so it finishes a very important issue, I think of that issue. The question for the policy for the emerging market to prevent the risk and the potential cross-border situations that we mentioned. I think a few things are absolutely important for the emerging market. I agree with Mr. Singh said, regardless of what the emerging market do, you will have the continued impact by the advanced economy. But I disagree with Mr. Singh. In the sense that we can do a lot of things to reduce the damage. I think that's a lot of room. That's true. Yeah, as I say, the beta risk today is much, much smaller than, say, three years ago. That's true. So it's obvious to show that the world is very different. The few things, number one, continuously tied to monetary policy. Because emerging markets also have the lose monetary policy over the credit issues, continue to tie the monetary, say, to combat the inflation pressures and also to slow down the long growth to make sure the banking sector is safe and stable. This is always the most important issue because in the emerging market, banking sector always plays such a key important role over the capital market and the bonds market. So make sure the banking sector is okay is very important. And the second issue is also gradually neutralize the fiscal policy. At this moment, it's not the time to stimulate the growth further rather and try to stabilize the whole thing. I think this is a very important issue. And I think this is the few macro policies emerging market need to prepare and build a cushion, particularly in the fiscal area. Because in the fiscal area, the fiscal space, most of them are gone in the past three years for emerging market. So it's time to rebuild the fiscal space to prepare for the potential crisis as well. For two Chinese questions, let me translate it into Chinese. Yes, it's going to confuse people if I switch between languages that I will answer in Chinese. On the ADB's downgrade of growth forecast, for Asia, this is a good thing. And it would be healthy for Asian and emerging market growth to slow down. This is part of government efforts to gradually cool down growth in an effort to provide greater stability. But there's one issue for concern, which is that when there's a rather brisk slow down globally, you need to make sure that your own economy doesn't slow down too fast. This requires an enormous amount of political caution when making decisions. Now, I was asked, is it the right time for China to buy European bonds? Are you trading bonds at the moment? Well, you shouldn't be framing the question like that, clearly. What we need is the whole world working hand in hand to head off the sovereign debt crisis and financial instability, which are leading to the crisis in the developed world. Premier Wen reiterated this point very well this morning. The Chinese government has always been in favour of international financial stability, and it was important that he reiterated it this morning. First of all, an apology in closing to all of you for being so harsh on the discipline of our timing. Many thanks to the panel for an absolutely spectacular, fascinating conversation. And I think the conclusion is, because somebody asked whether we would draw conclusions. Well, the forum doesn't draw conclusions. Not even about the G20 bill, but I believe that everyone comes away with a sense that muddling through is no longer possible, that there is a sense of huge urgency and that life seems to be very uncertain, rather uncharted, and possibly unsettling. Have a very nice evening.