G7 MEETING O'Neill says world now back on feet since last G7 meeting in Oct
OTTAWA (AFX) - Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the world is now back on its feet after the shock of Sept 11 stunned the G7 into silence on economic matters at their last meeting in October.
"I think the world has got its feet underneath itself again now -- that's really different (from October)," O'Neill said after the G7 finance ministers' and central bank governors' meeting here.
"People were in a state of shock in October, and there wasn't any sense of bearing," he said, adding that the G7 at that time was not even able to concentrate on economic matters.
"It was like the world was still shut down and captured by the awful memories of the buildings falling down," he said.
"I don't remember that (October G7) meeting being about economics at all," he said.
In a separate statement, O'Neill repeated his assessment that the US has passed the worst part of the economic slowdown, and will return to 3.0-3.5 pct growth "as soon as the fourth quarter of this year."
The US Treasury Secretary also hailed a move by the G7 towards more focussed and substantive talks over the past year, since his first participation in the G7 gatherings.
"I'm becoming more of a fan" of the G7 and other international sessions, he said, which are now "digging into subjects of more depth."
He highlighted the brevity of the G7's communique, which was a single page.
"It means that we really talked about the things that are in the communique; we didn't just touch the base (of each issue) to make the world happy," he said.
"It's a way of saying we created the communique ... it's really our work, and it's a consequence of our coming together and having a serious conversation about the issues of our time in a really deep way," he explained.
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