UAE ready to play key role
'UAE will employ all means to head off the global financial crisis'
Abu Dhabi: The UAE came to the rescue of the world against the spreading financial crisis, the Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Thursday.
"The UAE will employ all means to head off the global financial crisis, be it through bilateral cooperation with the country's friends and allies or through international financial institutions," Shaikh Abdullah told a joint press conference with his German counterpart Frank Walter Steinmeier in Abu Dhabi.
Shaikh Abdullah did not suggest any bailout package but stressed the UAE is emerging as an important financial contributor to the world financial system.
"We are part of a global system and this entails obligations... We are also interested that the world witnesses auspicious growth to achieve the millennium development goals."
He added: "We in the UAE highly appreciate cooperation with our allies in the G8 and the Group of 20 and fully support the role Saudi Arabia will play in the next meeting on means to contain a deepening fin-ancial crisis before it triggers a global recession.
The United States and EU appealed to the GCC countries to rescue their ailing financial institutions. "Collective efforts are needed to tackle the global financial crisis and Gulf countries have a key role to play in resolving it," Robert Kimmitt, deputy secretary of the US Department of the Treasury, said on Tuesday.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and IMF first deputy managing director John Lipsky have appealed to China and the Gulf states to contribute to the IMF fund as the $250 billion (Dh917.5 billion), which the IMF has earmarked to bail out countries in distress may not suffice.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called for a special meeting of the Group of 20 nations to brainstorm crisis remedies.
The meeting tomorrow in Washington will bring together the US and European economies with the cash-rich stars of the developing world, such as China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Shaikh Abdullah said the GCC countries tasked King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia to convey "our views about the tools that will be used to attack the credit crunch so that the world may not face a similar crisis".
