US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner joined his counterparts from Indonesia and Singapore Thursday in calling for fast-growing Asian economies to make up for slack US consumer demand to ensure future economic growth.
"As US households save more and the US reduces its fiscal deficit, others must spur greater growth of private demand in their own economies," Geithner said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Co-authored with Indonesia's Sri Mulyani Indrawait and Singapore's Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the op-ed appeared on the eve of President Barack Obama's nine day trip to Asia, his first as president.
Obama will attend an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Singapore over the weekend.
The three finance ministers, pointing to the lessons of global economic crisis, stressed the need for a coordinated approach to economic policymaking in order to ensure "strong, stable and balanced growth in the future."
"That is why we will be working together at this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Singapore to couple adjustment in deficit countries like the US with the more rapid growth of domestic demand in surplus countries," it said.
APEC's 21 member countries account for 40 percent of the world's population, half the world gross domestic product, and half of all world trade, they noted.
"APEC members' priorities have to be focused increasingly on strategies to sustain private demand growth as fiscal stimulus measures are gradually unwound," they said.
"Depending on individual economies' circumstances, a combination of macroeconomic policy adjustments and structural reforms will be needed.
"Market-oriented exchange rates in line with economic fundamentals will be essential in assuring the resource and sectoral shifts to match and foster the new patterns of demand," they said.
