IMF to launch early warning exercise in April to prevent crisis+

TOKYO, March 16 Kyodo - The International Monetary Fund will launch an early warning exercise in April
together with the Financial Stability Forum to try to prevent a financial
crisis in the future, a Japanese official said Monday, quoting a progress
report on an action plan for financial reforms adopted by major industrialized
and emerging economies last November.

The IMF and the Basel-based FSF, which brings together financial authorities
from the Group of 20 members, will start conducting exercises to examine each
country's macroeconomic conditions regularly at an annual meeting of the
Washington-based lender and the World Bank slated for April 25-26 in the U.S.
capital, the report said.
Britain, which chaired a weekend meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central
bank governors, has released the paper on the 47-point action plan adopted at
the previous financial summit in Washington. It includes immediate actions that
must be implemented by March 31.
The G-20 gathering was held in southern England on Friday and Saturday to
prepare for the April 2 London Summit to review progress made by major
economies in tackling the current economic crisis.
Among steps included in the action plan are strengthening the oversight of
credit agencies, establishing supervisory colleges for major cross-border
financial institutions, and including more emerging economies as members of the
FSF.
Following the action plan, supervisory colleges have been established ''for the
majority of the most systemically important firms identified by the FSF''
amounting to about 20.
Supervisory colleges refer to taskforces consisting of regulatory authorities
in relevant countries to monitor global operations of major financial
institutions.
The advisory forum has ''expanded to include as new members the G-20 countries
that are not currently in the FSF,'' such as Brazil, China, India, South Korea,
Mexico and Russia, according to the report.
On financial regulations, the report said G-20 financial chiefs agreed on
registration of all credit rating agencies and that work to form a common set
of principles for hedge fund practices will be completed by the end of April.
==Kyodo
2009-03-16 23:1