MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin expects frank discussions with G20 partners at a meeting in Australia but says that decisions reached at previous G20 summits often failed to be implemented.
“I expect to have frank discussion with my colleagues and not to beat about the bush,” Putin said in an interview with the German television ARD.
The Russian president said that “the decisions made there and the discussions at these venues are not binding and unfortunately are often not implemented, for example the decision to change the configuration of the international monetary system, to enhance the role of developing economies due to their changing position in the world economy as a whole.”
“For example, we adopted a decision at a G20 summit to enhance the role of developing economies in the IMF. But the US Congress blocked the decision and everything came to a standstill,” he said.
Putin said that these were realities but “we hope to have frank and unbiased discussions.”
“As for the international financial architecture, the current problem is not new,” he said.
He said that “it concerns the fact that developed economies have a surplus of capital that the Western economies do not know where to invest efficiently and reliably. The developing economies have commodity imbalance because they produce and sell goods using low-cost labour and some other production instruments that are cheaper than in Europe and the United States.”
“So, there is a capital imbalance on one side and a commodity imbalance on the other side. It is difficult to agree on joint efforts in this area because the developing economies are always uncertain about the rules of the game concerning the allocation of this capital,” he said.
The Russian president said that this thesis could be proved by an example of sanctions imposed on Russia.
“The sanctions you have mentioned are a vivid negative example of our partners' behaviour,” he said.