Positive Signs Not Necessarily End of 'Darkness': Geithner

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Friday that signs of an easing in the pace of deterioration in the global economy should not be confused with the start of recovery.

"We are right to be somewhat encouraged, but we would be wrong to conclude that we are close to emerging from the darkness that descended on the global economy early last fall," Geithner said in prepared remarks following the meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington.

Geithner said some measures of spending in the United States and other economies may have begun to stabilize, along with U.S. housing and financial conditions in some markets.

But he said the globalized economy had little experience in dealing with crises that follow credit booms and originate in the collapse of financial systems. He said governments must "keep at implementing our shared agenda," which was agreed at the London Group of 20 meeting last month.

Among these goals are governments' continued efforts to supply the necessary stimulus and stabilization of their financial systems to ensure a sustained global recovery, and to ensure that the International Monetary Fund deploys its recently expanded resources and multilateral development banks to promote recovery and respond to the crisis.

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Geithner told a news conference he did not discuss with his G7 colleagues the preliminary result of U.S. regulators' "stress tests" of the top 19 American bank holding companies, due May 4.

"All we did was take stock of our efforts in the United States and in other countries to help make sure there is enough capital in our financial systems to support the credit that recovery will depend on."

The G7 meeting ended just prior to the start of another gathering of economy and finance officials from the G20, a group that has risen to prominence.

Geithner said the G20 meeting would have much the same agenda as the G7.

"In every meeting over the next couple days and in every meeting that's going to happen going forward to the next several months, it will be the same agenda," Geithner said. "And the agenda will be: What are we doing? Are we doing enough to help attenuate the risks in this recession, lay the foundation for an earlier recovery, lay the foundation for a more balanced, more sustainable recovery?"

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