ST. ANDREW'S, Scotland– FINANCE Ministers and Central Bank Governors of G-20 countries will wrap up their discussions on crisis exit strategies today (Nov. 7) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has placed the issue as high priority.

The two-day meeting held in St. Andrews, Scotland began yesterday (Nov. 6) and will provide the opportunity for country representatives to follow up on decisions made by their country’s leader in earlier G-20 crisis summits this year.

According to Caroline Atkinson, Director of External Relations of the IMF, which was represented at the meeting, two important items have been highlighted on the ministers’ agenda.

In the context of an ongoing economic and financial crisis, Atkinson stressed that the issues of implementing exit strategies and beefing up regulatory frameworks must be of great importance.

“The Managing Director has made very clear that it’s important to think about and to work on possible exit strategies. It’s too soon to implement them. It’s important that there should be a strong and sustained recovery and evidence of that before governments move forward on exit strategies,” she stated in response to a question posed during a press briefing on November 5.

As hope of recovery increases in larger countries, much focus has been placed on exit strategies in order to progressively return economic activity there. Concerns going forward, however, have not only been based on responding to crises, but have also focussed in some detail on preventing them.

Atkinson therefore stressed the importance of assessing frameworks that govern financial institutions and the entire sector, by extension.  The IMF regards such measures as “very important”, according to Atkinson, and while such discussions may not formally be tabled before the G-20 this year, she noted that it is important to plan for the future.

“There will be...discussions about how to take it forward, that all of the G-20 countries will be very interested in as we are. We take this as a very serious responsibility. And we were very glad that the IMFC in Istanbul put that as one of the four Istanbul decisions, that the Fund should work on that issue,” she added.

Information regarding the decisions made at the meeting is expected to be made public shortly after the meeting comes to an end later today.