OECD Chief: Large Economies Cannot Afford More Spending

MOSCOW, February 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD discussed pressing economic questions in an exclusive interview with RT. The interview aired in full on February 15, 2013.

Gurría expressed his skepticism regarding the proposed tax on financial transactions, which has been widely discussed in Europe. He noted that "only a few countries will adopt it. And if it's not adopted by all the countries in the world, at least all the countries that do a very important volume of international financial transactions, then it can very easily move to the next country."

Gurría added that there's an uncertainty regarding the purpose that the collected tax would serve: "Do you want it to recover part of the losses incurred by the systems, or do you want to create a fund to be able to face any future crises? Do you want it just for general purposes, for the treasury…is it just one more tax in order to generate more revenue?"

Asked whether in his opinion certain governments are waging currency wars, Gurría affirmed that "there are no currency wars today. We are further away today from a currency war than we were two or three years ago when this phrase was coined…What we have today is a number of countries exploring ways in which they can improve the growth prospects and improve the job creation. Not necessarily manipulating the currency to gain competitiveness at the expense of the next person."

He emphasized that improved economic performance of the United States, Europe and Japan will benefit global economy as a whole, but with limited options at their disposal "what we're seeing is that these large economies are looking for ways in which to stimulate growth that's no longer based on more spending, because they cannot afford more spending".

Watch the full interview at http://rt.com.

RT is a global international news network that broadcasts in English, Arabic and Spanish from its studios in Moscow and Washington, DC, and is available to 630 million viewers worldwide. Pew Research Center's 2012 study named RT, whose YouTube channel has passed 850 million views, as the largest provider of news video footage on the world's largest video sharing platform. RT is the only Russian TV channel to garner two nominations for the prestigious Emmy International Award.