KEATING: DITCH IMF, G7 TO OVERCOME FINANCIAL MELTDOWN

By Neville D'Cruz

MELBOURNE, Feb 3 (Bernama) - A worldwide political and economic overhaul is the only way to overcome the current global financial crisis, former Australian prime minister Paul Keating says.

World leaders should do away with big inter-government institutions and the
International Monetary Fund to overcome current financial woes.

"What we need is a completely new global political and economic settlement,"
Keating told the ABC's Lateline programme on Monday.

"Get rid of the old G7 (Group of Seven). We've got to get rid of the old
IMF. We've got to bring the surplus countries into the political framework.

"The G7 is made up of debtor countries, countries like the United States,
Britain, France, Italy -- these are all borrowers.

"There's no surplus countries in that, and if you look at the structure of
the IMF, the Chinese get 3.7 percent of the vote. The Indians get 1.9 (percent).

The Americans and the Europeans get 51 percent.

"There is just no way the Chinese communist government is going to hand over
control of their currency and their political fortunes to a Washington-based,
U.S. Treasury-run institution, so unless there is going to be a totally new
settlement, we are not going to get out of this."

The world financial meltdown was "a catastrophe", Keating said.

"It's way worse than it appears.

"We've had an expansion of credit running for 60 years, from 1947 to 2007.
This is the first time - 2008 and then '09 - that we have had a contraction of
credit.

"The top 200 financial institutions in the world have suffered a loss of
value of 74 percent," he said.
-- BERNAMA