IQALUIT, Nunavut — Global financial leaders gathered in a frigid Canadian town Friday to confront more market turmoil, which served as an unsettling reminder that they still face major hurdles repairing a broken global economy.
The market turbulence, triggered by worries about unsustainable debt burdens in several European countries, forced its way onto the agenda of a two-day meeting of finance officials from the Group of Seven major industrial countries.
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the chairman of the meetings, said that discussions about the situation in Europe had already begun among individual ministers before the first formal session Friday.
“I think we have to be very mindful of the failure or potential failure of domestic economies,” Flaherty told reporters during a news conference.
Other major topics at the discussions were global imbalances such as America’s huge budget deficits and China’s large trade surpluses, the need to continue with stimulus programs and the overhaul of bank rules to prevent a repeat of last year’s financial crisis.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he planned to seek support for the International Monetary Fund and other lending agencies to forgive Haiti’s debt to help it recover from its earthquake.
