CANBERRA—Treasurer Wayne Swan has pressed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to improve the standards of financial institutions as global credit problems continue.
Mr Swan, in Washington for the IMF's spring meetings, also warned the global financial turmoil will have a significant impact on his inaugural budget next month.
After meeting with the IMF's policy committee - comprising 24 members representing 185 member countries - Mr Swan said the group had discussed the global response to the challenges posed by the current financial market turbulence.
"In these discussions, I highlighted the need to improve global standards of transparency and disclosure by financial institutions," Mr Swan said in a statement.
"International cooperation needs to be strengthened to address the complexity and cross-border nature of financial structures, instruments and risks."
He said the IMF also considered how to strengthen the body's role in financial sector surveillance and crisis prevention, as well as IMF governance and policy reforms to help support this role.
The IMF committee has released a statement indicating that since its last meeting six months ago, global financial instability had increased, economic growth had slowed and growth prospects for 2008 and 2009 had deteriorated.
Mr Swan, who has also met with US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke while in Washington, says this gloomy world financial outlook will impact on his inaugural budget, due to be handed down on May 13.
"Well, certainly, Australia is better placed than most developed countries to handle the fallout of what's happening in the world economy," he said.
"But ... we've had slowing world growth, higher inflation in the developing world, and international financial market turmoil, which is attacking business confidence around the world.
"That's going to produce slower growth - if that flows onto China and India, that does have significant implications for the Australian economy and for our budget."
Mr Swan said his number one budget priority was tackling inflation.
"We've got a delicate balance as we frame this budget," he said.
"We have to tackle inflation but we have to modernise our economy, particularly to safeguard the country from the international fallout of what has been obvious here at the IMF."
Feeds