U.S., Asian finance ministers see common goals

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (L) is greeted by Japan's Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii upon arriving at a Japanese restaurant for a meeting in Tokyo November 10, 2009.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The United States and Asia are inextricably linked and must work together to build a more stable economy, top U.S., Indonesian and Singaporean finance officials wrote in an editorial to be published on Thursday.

In the editorial prepared for the Wall Street Journal Asia, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Singaporean Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said as U.S. households save more, others must take steps to spur domestic growth.

The United States has pushed for a more balanced global economy that is less dependent on debt-powered consumption in the United States. At the Group of 20 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh in September, world leaders endorsed a U.S.-backed plan to rebalance the world economy.

Washington wants China in particular to take steps to strengthen its social safety net to encourage spending at home, and to allow its yuan currency to appreciate more rapidly. While the editorial did not name China, the finance leaders reiterated the need for currency exchange rates to be established by markets.

"Market-oriented exchange rates in line with economic fundamentals will be essential in assuring the resource and sectoral shifts to match and foster the new patterns of demand," they said.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville in Singapore; Writing by Emily Kaiser; Editing by Andrea Ricci)