G20 summit will not lead to Bretton Woods II: IMF chief

London, Nov 8 (PTI) Warning that the G20 summit next week is unlikely to produce radical change in the way the global economy is governed, the head of International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) said that expectations from the summit are over-hyped.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the I.M.F.'s managing director, said that transformation could not take place overnight and world leaders meeting in Washington on November 15 are not going to create a new international treaty.

"Expectations should not be oversold. Things are not going to change overnight. Bretton Woods took two years to prepare. A lot of people are talking about Bretton Woods II," he was quoted as saying by the Financial Times in an interview.

"The words sound nice but we are not going to create a new international treaty," he said.

The G20 summit will discuss modalities to reform the I.M.F. which was established as part of the Bretton Woods agreement on international financial management signed in 1944.

Earlier French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for overhaul and radical changes in the working of the I.M.F. making it more receptive to current situaion. The European Union (E.U.) too called for an overhaul of the I.M.F. with Sarkozy, whose country holds the E.U.'s rotating presidency, saying, "We want to change the rules of the game."

The I.M.F. head ruled out the possibility of
establishment any "early warning system" that could warn about
any future financial crsisis as voiced by British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown. The U.S., though, has been more
lukewarm on the possibility of radical change.

"I have heard contradictory things about it. I don't
think you can have a mechanical system with red lights and
green lights and, sometimes country by country, the light goes
from green to red," he said. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama
is unlikely to attend the G20 summit next week. PTI