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Medvedev: end of U.S. dominance

MOSCOW: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the global financial crisis tolled the death bell for the U.S. financial dominance and called for bringing onboard the “outreach” countries in implementing worldwide financial reforms.

“The time of domination by one economy and one currency has been consigned to the past once and for all,” Mr. Medvedev told a Russian-German development forum in St. Petersburg on Thursday. “The existing global mechanisms failed to maintain financial stability. We need new mechanisms of collective decision-making and collective responsibility,” he said. “It is imperative to enlist the participation of ‘outreach countries’, of all major economies, not just G8, in efforts to set up a new global financial architecture.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who attended the forum and held talks with Mr. Medvedev, agreed.

“We should draw lessons from the current crisis,” she said. “We need new mechanisms of international [financial] architecture.”The German Chancellor said she still believed Russia’s response to the Georgian attack against South Ossetia was “disproportionate”, but hinted at an early resumption of talks on a new partnership pact between the European Union and Russia.

She also said it was “too early” for Georgia and Ukraine to be given a roadmap for NATO membership.

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