Germany to host conference on regulating markets

Germany is to host a conference on regulating the financial markets ahead of the next G20 summit, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

Germany is to host a conference on regulating the financial markets ahead of the next G20 summit, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview to be published Sunday.

"It is important not to weaken our international efforts to secure better regulation," he told the Welt am Sonntag weekly.

"To sustain this process I am going to organise a high-level international conference before the next summit of the G20," which is scheduled for the end of June in Toronto.

According to the weekly Der Spiegel, the conference is planned for late May in Berlin, with finance ministers and central bank officials from the Group of 20 leading and emerging economic powers.

Schaeuble hailed recent moves by US President Barack Obama aimed at reforming markets and banks."

"Something moving in the United States on this issue is a welcome development," he said. "It makes the chances of finding a common solution all the greater."

Calling for European countries to take the initiative if wider efforts fail, he said Germany wanted the financial sector to share fully the costs of the current crisis and any future crises.

Berlin would be making its own proposals to this effect in the next few weeks, Schaeuble said.

The international Financial Stability Board, set up by the G20 last year to coordinate regulatory reform in the wake of the financial crisis, said Saturday that it was considering moves like those planned by the Obama administration to cut the risks posed by big bank failures.

The FSB welcomed the US plans announced on Thursday and said it would publish its full recommendations in October 2010. It is to release an interim report after the G20 summit in June.