Unlimited bailout risky: UN official

By Wang Jianfen and Bi Xiaoning (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-07-03 16:39

Governments worldwide should refrain from granting unlimited bailouts to big companies to cope with the current financial crisis, a senior United Nations official said on Friday.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said it is unreasonable to assume world's leading companies will not go bankrupt.

"[But] the big companies that suffered loss shouldn't transfer their liability to the governments and taxpayers.

"Coping with the crisis needs the efforts from all over the world, including the organizations of the United Nations," said Panitchpakdi, who believes joint efforts must be also made to eliminate world's poverty.

He said the current financial turmoil resulted from excess liquidity and over speculation, is similar to the causes of the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

Panitchpakdi said counter-cyclical supervision to avoid future crisis should be implemented, rather than simply strengthening regulations in economic downturn and relaxing the supervision when the economy is recovered.

Although some media blame over-saving in Asian countries which supposedly lead to over-consumption in western countries resulting in the current financial crisis, he said it was not convincing as the modest consumption in Asia is reasonable.

Panitchpakdi said the Asian consumption growth rate is about six to seven percent annually and the country's strong savings match with its robust consumption. In the future inflation might once again be the spiny problem three years later, he said.

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