Deputy finance ministers of the G20 countries discussed in a teleconference format the tense situation in financial markets, the fiscal and debt crisis in Europe, as well as the downgrade of the US credit rating by analysts of the international rating agency Standard & Poor's. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Finance of South Korea Choi Jong-ku. However, he did not provide details of the discussions, Reuters reports.

According to him, Seoul has not lost confidence in US government bonds, despite the deprivation of the world's leading economy of the highest AAA credit rating. “During the conference, I outlined the official position of South Korea - we will not dramatically change our reserve policy,” Choi Jong-ku said. Let us note that a significant part of the republic’s gold and foreign exchange reserves, the total volume of which exceeds $300 billion, is accounted for by American treasury bonds. “There is currently no alternative to US government bonds either in terms of profitability or reliability,” the minister stated.

Let us recall that the initiative to hold a special meeting of finance ministers of the G7 countries (the seven industrialized countries, G7) was made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. According to the two leaders, if, as a result of the discussions, it is possible to agree on measures to prevent a new round of the global financial crisis, then at the next stage this issue should be discussed by the heads of state and government of the G8 countries.

The day before, unnamed high-ranking sources in European diplomatic circles reported on an upcoming meeting of finance ministers and heads of central banks (CBs) of the G7 countries, which could take place in two stages (August 6 and 7, 2011) in a teleconference format.

Let us recall that initially the G7 meeting was supposed to take place in Marseille (France) in early September 2011. The need for extraordinary consultations is due to the deep decline of the world stock market, the capitalization of which decreased by $2.5 trillion over the past week, as well as the unprecedented downgrade of the US credit rating by the international rating agency S&P, the sources explained.

The day before, French Finance Minister Francois Barouin, who, if a G7 or G20 summit is convened, will take the chair of the forum, said that it was premature to talk about plans to hold an extraordinary meeting of the G7 representatives. Japanese Deputy Finance Minister Fumihiko Igarashi also denied information about the upcoming discussion.

G20 representatives urgently discussed the crisis in financial markets