WASHINGTON — Financial leaders, with a nervous eye on Greece, pledged Saturday to address the risks posed to the global recovery from high government debt.
But they also stressed that high unemployment in many countries remained a threat to a sustainable recovery from the deepest global downturn since the end of World War II.
The Greek debt crisis has dominated the weekend discussions among finance officials from the world’s major economies.
The policy-setting panel of the 186-nation International Monetary Fund on Saturday cited signs that the recovery from the global downturn is gaining strength but noted difficult challenges lie ahead in such areas as growing government debt burdens and lingering high unemployment.
“The worst is definitely behind us, but we are not out of the woods yet,” said Egyptian Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali, chairman of the IMF panel.
Greece’s finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, flew to Washington for two days of talks with officials of the IMF, the European Union and the Obama administration.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged the Greek government, European officials and the IMF to “move quickly to put in place a package of strong reforms and substantial concrete financial support,” according to a Treasury statement.
Greece is hoping to obtain loans of $40 billion from European countries and $13.4 billion from the IMF.
