U.S.' Paulson to meet with French, British leaders
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will travel to Europe next week to meet with the recently installed leaders of France and Britain to discuss a range of economic issues, the Treasury said on Monday.
Paulson also disclosed plans for his first trip to India in late October.
The Treasury secretary will meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other French officials, including Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, on the morning of September 17.
He will then travel to London to meet that afternoon with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, the Treasury said in a statement. It is Paulson's first trip to Europe since the UK and French leaders were installed.
"They are going to discuss a range of issues," said Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin, who declined to provide more specifics.
McLaughlin said Paulson had been trying to schedule trips to meet with Brown and Sarkozy since well before problems with U.S. subprime mortgages began roiling global financial markets last month.
Limiting the economic damage from financial market turmoil and easing the credit crunch are prime topics for discussion in both countries, where hedge funds and banks have sustained subprime losses.
Paulson in recent days has spent a lot of time on the phone to bankers and market participants to discuss ways to restore the U.S. commercial paper market to normal functioning. It has been difficult for holders of asset-backed commercial paper to assess the repayment performance of their underlying mortgages, so investors have shunned new risks.
NEW ALLIES ON YUAN
In Sarkozy and Lagarde, Paulson has newfound allies in his efforts to persuade China to lift the value of its yuan currency. Both have said the yuan is undervalued relative to economic fundamentals, hurting French industry, although Sarkozy recently said the U.S. dollar also was not correctly valued.
Sarkozy also is seeking Paulson's support for France's Domique Strauss-Kahn to head the International Monetary Fund.
Paulson has met privately with Strauss-Kahn, but McLaughlin said he has not yet taken a public position on the next leader for the IMF. European nations typically select the IMF's head, and the European Union has backed Strauss-Kahn.
The Treasury also said Paulson will travel to India in late October to meet with top officials in one of the world's fastest-growing economies and its most populous democracy. Paulson is scheduled to visit Mumbai on October 29 and New Delhi on October 30.
Paulson's efforts in Asia thus far have been focused almost exclusively on building a strategic dialogue with top Chinese officials and trying to persuade China to allow open markets to set the yuan's value and pursue reforms that will shift its economy away from exports to domestic consumption.
