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Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin
may have felt it as a sign of the times that he was among
the last at Rome's Excelsior hotel to see the closing
statement from this weekend's meeting of global
policymakers.
The worst
economic
crisis in a decade has hit Russia's chances of taking
a stronger role in the G7/G8 groups of
industrialized
nations and it was hard to escape the feeling on
Saturday that the clout it had achieved thanks to record
high oil
prices has evaporated.
Russia has never
been accepted as a fully-fledged member by those in the G7
club of free-market democracies, but in recent years it had
been pushing hard for a change of mind. There was little
sign of that in
Rome.
"As for any communique, there is room for
this one to be better," said Kudrin as he struggled through
the English version of the communique brought to him by an
aide during his press conference two hours after the meeting
was over.
The prospect of oil at $200 per barrel
within two years at the last summit of G8 government heads
in Japan
had prompted talk of Russia, the world's second largest oil
exporter, soon taking a proper seat at the discussion table
on economic issues too.
But with Russian crude trading at just
above $40, Kudrin came to the G7 worrying more about
inflation, debt and a slide in the rouble that has worried
Moscow
about the chances an
economic
downturn could become political trouble.
What may eventually turn some heads is the
state of Russia's struggling
private sector,
in which Western companies have invested heavily and which
runs about $500 billion in foreign debt accumulated during
the boom years, much of it with
international
banks.
But a Russian delegation source said that,
with Timothy Geithner's debut as U.S. Treasury Secretary the
center of attention in Rome, the debt issue had not even
been raised.
IMPORTANT CLUB
Moscow's seat at the G8 was a gesture of
good will in the 1990s and makes it feel special compared to
other major emerging powers
China,
India
and Brazil,
who are not a regular part of the G7 meetings.
But there is a consensus that the broader
G20 grouping is becoming the main forum for decisionmaking
in the global
financial crisis. The danger for an April meeting in
London
billed as a new Bretton Woods to reform global finance, is
that Moscow will react negatively to being left out in the
cold.
President Dmitry Medvedev
and other figures have already lambasted the G20 for its
slow progress ahead of the summit and Medvedev has even
questioned whether it is worth going. Kudrin said the Rome
G7 meeting was "an important step" in G20 preparations.
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