APEC ministers reject early end to stimulus

Finance ministers from the United States, China and other Asia-Pacific powers on Thursday rejected an early end to the huge stimulus packages they implemented to fight the global economic crisis.

"We agreed that the pace of implementing exit strategies should take into account different stages in the economic recovery of member economies, the type of policy measures to be phased out, and any spillovers caused by our strategies," they said.

The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group's finance ministers issued a statement after an annual meeting in Singapore, ahead of a weekend summit of their leaders including US President Barack Obama.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the ministers agreed that the stimulus packages would be allowed to run their course this year and in 2010 before gradually phasing them out.

"The downside risk of discontinuing the stimulus early has been very substantial, we know that from history," he said at a joint news conference.

Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati called for a coordinated exit.

"Although the current understanding and agreement is there that we have to really phase out this exit policy according to each of the countries' specific circumstances, certainly coordinated efforts have a much higher and effective impact," she said.

She said further discussions will be held in a bid to develop a framework for the exit plan.

APEC should not just look at restoring economic growth for the short term, but how to achieve a better quality of expansion in the medium term, the Indonesian minister said.

The United States implemented a 787-billion-dollar Recovery Act in February which the White House says has saved or created nearly 650,000 jobs, and likely more than a million.

Analysts say massive stimulus packages rolled out by Asian governments helped the region weather the downturn better than the United States or Europe, led by 585 billion dollars in spending by China.