Russia To Come To G-8 With New Ideas On Security, Energy

In April l'Aquila was struck by an earthquake and now on the eve of the G8 summit an increase of seismic activity in the region has been marked. Meanwhile it has not affected the plans on holding a G8 summit. Dmitry Medvedev is to depart for the summit late Tuesday and to be back on July 10, Dvorkovich said. Speaking about the future discussion of the global economic crisis issue he said that the G8 leaders planned to scale down anti crisis measures as soon as the revival of the global economy becomes obvious.

According to the summit’s statement, anti-crisis programs should continue but as soon as the revival is obvious the leading countries will be ready to scale down their anti-crisis programs. This is being done not to undermine the growth of macroeconomic stability. Though it is too early now to stop the implementation of anti-crisis programs we should think about have macroeconomic sustainability in advance.

Dmitry Medvedev plans to draw attention of G8 leaders to the Russian initiative on international energy cooperation. For the moment there are two possible scenarios, Dvorkovich said.

The first scenario is to discuss an option to renew the current Energy Charter, but Russia will agree on it only in case radical changes are made in this document. The second scenario is to elaborate a new document.

The G8 leaders will consider an option to reduce crude price range, Dvorkovich said.

We have agreed that first of all we should discuss an option to reduce crude price range and not define which price would be acceptable for everyone. G8 leaders will in particular discuss market transparency, stability of investments, energy efficiency, as well as cooperation between consumers, producers and suppliers of energy resources. The latter is Russia’s initiative. All these aspects will be reflected in a declaration which is to be approved at G8 summit.

Dvorkovich also said that Russia will continue to advocate at the meeting of the Group of Eight leading nations this week the need to develop a new international reserve currency. Leaders of The presidential aide said that Russia and China had already spoken about the need to develop a new financial system which would imply the emergence of several regional reserve currencies.

Written by Voice of Russia