WASHINGTON (AFP) - IMF policymakers, gathering under heavy police guard, went behind closed doors here to assess near-term global economic prospects threatened by rising oil prices.
Participants were ferried in vans to International Monetary Fund headquarters in the early hours of the morning through a part of downtown Washington that had become a virtual ghost town.
While no major protests were expected, police have nonetheless imposed a vast security perimeter, ringing the area around the IMF with massive cement traffic barriers and heavy-duty trucks and denying entrance to anyone without proper credentials.
The Department of Homeland Security in early August reported that international financial institutions could be terrorist targets, but IMF and US officials quoted in local press reports said no additional information on the threat had been received.
The 24-member International Monetary and Financial Committee, finance ministers or central bank governors representing all regions of the world, are meeting at a time when the world economy -- according to the IMF -- is in its best shape in nearly three decades.
But while the global economy is projected to expand a healthy five percent in 2004, the prognosis for next year is uncertain in the face of oil market volatility.
The threat was highlighted prominently Friday in a statement issued here after a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers, who appealed to oil producers to ensure that supplies were sufficient to keep prices manageable.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told reporters after the meeting that "all we are observing today is not encouraging."
He said that if oil prices continued to climb, it would pose "a serious problem" for the world economy.
Momentum is also imperiled by lackluster growth in the euro zone, gaping US budget and current account deficits and, according to Western officials and commentators, Chinese resistance to calls for greater currency flexibility.
Another hot-button issue is the crippling debt owed rich countries and international financial institutions by poor countries. An IMF and World Bank initiative on debt relief for the world`s poorest was recently extended until the end of 2006, but the effort has been faulted by activist groups and development analysts as vastly insufficient.
Britain has offered to pay off 10 percent of the debt of poor countries owed to the World Bank and other development banks, amounting to a challenge to its wealthy partners to follow its lead.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn hailed the British proposal, calling it "an enormously constructive suggestion."
In another potential initiative, Britain and Oxfam have suggested that the IMF revalue its huge gold holdings to help it finance more ambitious debt relief.