Australia sets three goals for this week’s G20 meeting

Australia has set three goals for the G20 leaders’  meeting in London on Thursday.

“The way forward for the summit is clear,” the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, told finance journalists in Tokyo yesterday.

“To deal with the problem of toxic assets.

“To maintain the impetus for fiscal stimulus measures.

“And to resist trade and financial protectionism.”

Several European nations, including Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic have been distinctly sceptical on the issue of  stimulus measures.

However, as the Finance Minister Linsday Tanner pointed out yesterday, the German leader, Angela Merkel, had indulged in a little fiscal stimulus, herself, when economic circumstances showed that was necessary.

And Mr Swan, at least, is optimistic.

He said the “groundwork” for the G20 Leaders’ Meeting has already been done.

And governments around the world had already agreed that fiscal stimulus would be necessary this year.

“And we have agreed to have the IMF assess what further stimulus might be needed beyond what has been agreed for 2009,”  he said.

He said, too, that the G20′s agenda is “very broad” as “it needs to be.”

Mr Swan has also been selling Australia’s “underlying resilience” to Japanese investors, while he has been in Tokyo.

He said that four of the world’s 11 most stable banks are, in fact, Australian.