THE WEST HANDS OVER POSITIONS - WARS, PROBABLY, AVERTED

The G-20 summit ended in Seoul on 12 November. The major outcome, according to its participants, was the approval of an Action Plan on Development for the medium term.

That is to say, as Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev explained, the G-20 has, for the first time, not resulted simply in a signed declaration, but with an endorsement of a concrete Action Plan for each country separately and for the G-20 as a whole.

"We have agreed on everything. Yes, there were disputes on separate elements of the declaration, but that is normal. I will tell you directly, the readiness to agree within the G-20 is absolutely unprecedented. The states - the largest issuers of reserve currencies and other significant currencies are ready to listen carefully to each other and to coordinate their efforts in order not to allow the manipulation of exchange rates," said the Russian president, giving analysts plenty of food for thought.

Apparently, the G-20 is beginning to eclipse the G-7 and not because twenty is more than seven. But because the traditionally "big" (to be precise, strong) economies are currently compelled to listen to the voice of the "small" (or weak), which have managed to grow and strengthen.

Pay attention: "the largest issuers of reserve currencies and other significant currencies are ready to listen carefully to each other". Figuratively speaking, the dollar and the euro, before strengthening or weakening, will now look back at the yuan, the yen or the rouble. The main point being that there will be no 'currency wars'. This desire probably also dictates the "absolutely unprecedented readiness" to agree inside the G-20 and is the reason the G-20 has accepted a concrete plan of action for the first time and not limited itself to rhetorical statements.

This is somewhat unusual. And the West and the East are not those to which we have become used. While previously, the solution to a global problem was sought in the West, now the voices are louder from China, India, Japan, Korea, Turkey and Russia. "Europe and North America were in the G-20 forum burdened with debt due to the strongest recession since the Second World War. Asia and most of Africa looked as if there had been no recession at all," reports the British Independent.

However, the British prime minister laughed the matter off, claiming from the tribune of the G-20 that he had travelled a long way to Seoul just to sleep properly. As he explained, after the birth of the third child in his family, he was suffering from a lack of sleep. And now, having escaped from home for some days, he had decided to make up for lost time. Joking apart, the head of the British cabinet of ministers looked less carefree than previously. And the reasons are clear. The same British Independent reports how David Cameron had courted China and achieved contracts for export.

In the meantime, US President Barack Obama had no time for sleep. He arrived in Seoul with the specific task of promoting the restoration of a positive balance in foreign trade, that is to say, to increase exports and to rescue the image of the dollar as the reserve currency. As the NTV channel reported, in order to take the trade balance out of the negative, especially in relations with China and Germany, Washington has again launched the printing machine and will inject 600bn dollars into the world's economy.

Germany has already described such decisions as hopeless and useless, and Angela Merkel warned against the creation of new bubbles. But the USA's policy worries China, another large player in the world economy, most of all.

However, Obama apparently managed to calm Beijing down. The American president has declared that "the USA and China have got off the mark in discussions about economic problems".

"We, as two leading economies of the world, have special obligations, which are necessary for the maintenance of a strong economic balance and steady economic growth," Barack Obama said in a meeting with President Hu Jintao of the People's Republic of China.

Thus, the G-20 summit in Seoul has discharged slightly the situation in the global economy. But the threat of a collision of financial interests and, accordingly, the probability of a 'currency war' nevertheless remains. The main task, which boils down to countries ceasing to artificially weaken their own currencies to achieve momentary competitive advantage, has not been solved. For example, the chairman of the Peoples Republic of China, Hu Jintao, has said that China will continue to reform the mechanism for establishing an exchange rate for the yuan, but will do it gradually.

Anyway, the President Dmitriy Medvedev of Russia considers that the G-20 summit in Seoul was the last crisis summit. "The next will be post-crisis. It will be held in France in a year's time," Medvedev said.

It is difficult to confirm the accuracy of the Russian president's forecast. What is clear is that the centre of gravity in the world economy has moved irrevocably from the West to the East. This was confirmed once again by the G-20 summit in Seoul.