According to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the impact was felt most in poor countries and middle-income dependent on oil imports, which have to deal with problems such as high inflation and worsening poverty. “Some countries are at a point of no return,” said the director of the IMF Khelil saying that developing countries are facing with a dilemma over how to respond to prices oil, with too many subsidies would be a great burden on governments, but eliminating the subsidies would be unfair to the citizens. In Southeast Asia, a region burdened by debt and under constant pressure for corporate and financial restructuring, rising fuel prices this year have reversed the trend of rapid economic growth. A number of countries have lowered their growth expectations for 2008. ASEAN members were affected by rising inflation caused by soaring oil and food prices. High prices also forced India, Malaysia and Indonesia to cut subsidies and raise prices set by the state for gasoline and other fuels. The most pessimistic economists indicated that the global economic outlook is now more acute than during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998, when the effect was limited to emerging markets.
Another interesting topic of discussion at this Summit of the Group of 8 is the fight against warming. The leaders of Germany, Canada, United States, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and Russia should decide what follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, and which Washington never joined. The final declaration of Toyako indicate that “” the G-8 lead in efforts to reduce emissions by 50% “pollutants by 2050, according to the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. But the U.S. rejects any compromise that does not include India, China and other major polluters. Bush vowed the U.S. will play a “constructive” in these discussions, while former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said that Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, held a “fierce dispute” on this issue at the G-8 summit in Germany in 2007.
The G-8 also keep its promise to double aid to Africa to 50,000 million dollars by 2010, adopted at its appointment in Gleneagles (Scotland) in 2005, an OPEC source said. But “Countries are still divided” on the calendar of other commitments to Africa, especially the deadline for the release of 60,000 million dollars to fight AIDS and malaria, announced at the G-8 summit of 2007. + Michelle Foss, an energy economist, estimates that the G8 can put effective measures in the medium and long term in relation to the price of energy, as long as their commitments and recommendations are acts of political courage rather than political expediency. Some experts and lawmakers have blamed financial speculators for the recent increase in oil prices, but Foss, who directs the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas at Austin, told USINFO that even if that were true There are other important reasons for the rising price of oil, as are barriers to supply and energy subsidies in oil-consuming countries. It is possible that the G8 can do to change the medium term markets oil, if it brings up these controversial topics. If the United States showed determination to seriously consider the issue of drilling in these areas, it could relieve pressure on oil prices, “said Foss. You have to keep an eye on the conclusions, agreements that will leave the summit, which we hope should be for the benefit of everyone, especially the poorest countries, and we will contact you on these conclusions.