G-20 considers boosting IMF role in eurozone

[Javaman]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/story/2011-10-15/g20-imf-eurozone-debt/50785134/1

PARIS (AP) – The finance chiefs of the world's leading economies opened the door Saturday for the International Monetary Fund to play a bigger role in fighting the eurozone's escalating debt troubles.

The Group of 20 rich and poor nations asked the IMF to draw up a list of new tools to stop countries under severe market pressure from toppling into a full-blown crisis that could have global repercussions.

That appeared to be targeted directly at Italy and Spain, the eurozone's third and fourth largest economies, which have seen their funding costs spike in recent months as worries over the currency union's ability to stomp out the crisis intensified.

"What has been asked of us is instruments that are more flexible, more short term, that allow countries in good economic health but in difficulty to resist," the IMF's managing director Christine Lagarde said after a two-day meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Paris.

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