USA: WASHINGTON: IMF SPRING MEETING BEGINS WITH G-24 SESSION

Natural Sound The annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund began on Wednesday with a session of the Group of 24 nations. As delegates from the developing world assembled at the I-M-F headquarters in Washington D-C, finance ministers from the Group of 7 nations gathered for parallel sessions in the U-S capitol. The G-24 discussions are expected to be dominated by the recent Asian crisis. The I-M-F assembled more than 100 billion (b) dollars in emergency bailouts last year for Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea. World Bank President James Wolfensohn and I-M-F Managing Director Michel Camdessus on Wednesday joined leaders from 24 of the world's developing nations for talks on their economies. The chairman of the Group of 24, Venezuela's Central Bank President Antonio Casas-Gonzalez, greeted Camdessus at the start of a meeting aimed mainly at addressing the Asian financial crisis. In its World Economic Outlook, the I-M-F predicted that the Asian turmoil would reduce world economic output by 1.2 percentage points this year. This in turn will reduce economic growth to 3.1 percent, the lowest in five years. Most of the the visiting G-24 delegates were expected to push for further aid from the international lending bodies. But in earlier sessions this week, Camdessus and his counterparts have indicated they expect to see strict fiscal reforms from developing nations. The I-M-F director, seen here talking to his counterpart at the World Bank, has indicated that he regards Japan's slide towards recession as a matter of grave concern. In the parallel meeting of the G-7, - the world's largest industrialised economies - officials are expected to focus attentions on Japan's current economic woes. The World Bank President James Wolfensohn plans to discuss what lessons financial institutions can draw from the Asian collapse. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/fc776fac15c432fafc5a40933ec7e188 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork