Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 16, 1994 TAG: 9403160177
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Medium
Still, they declared their meeting an ``important first step'' that would lead to better coordination in the future.
``It is critical that we prepare our economies, and, most importantly, our people, for the challenges that await us in the next century,'' the group declared in a ``chairman's statement'' read by U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen as 23 other ministers looked on.
After two days of discussions, the officials had little to show for their efforts beyond a decision to study the problem further and bring it up to their bosses when they meet in Naples, Italy, in July for the annual seven-nation economic summit meeting.
The conference did produce a modest work product - mainly in instructions to the Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to study ways to improve the gathering of unemployment statistics and to examine the connection between increases in productivity, new technology and job creation and job loss.
Bentsen declared the conference a success because it meant that ``jobs and growth move right up to the top of the agenda'' for the Naples summit meeting of the same seven countries - the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy.
Vice President Al Gore said the Detroit meeting marked a fundamental shift in international economic cooperation by putting the issue of jobs on an equal footing with more esoteric questions on interest rates and budget deficits that normally dominate international debate.
The conference produced a 41-page report that describes success stories in each nation ranging from Canada's job-sharing programs to the Clinton administration's new $13 billion plan to overhaul the country's unemployment system.
Ministers of other countries conceded that sharp differences remained.
``Every country is going its own way, but in the setting of goals, a coordination has been achieved,'' said German Finance Minister Theo Waigel.
British Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke, who had joked Monday that, while the talks weren't the most stimulating he had ever heard, they weren't the most boring either,
He said some countries even had wide gulfs in the positions inside their own delegations.
The Japanese, who, unlike the Europeans, aren't saddled with high unemployment and, unlike the Americans, have enjoyed faster wage growth, said the meetings conveyed a ``sense that they (the others) must learn from Japan.''
by CNB