Gordon Brown speech on UK economy

Gordon Brown speech on UK economy; Gordon Brown speech continues SOT - These are the critical domestic economic decisions - the new basis of an industrial partnership between business and government - that will secure the recovery and build for strong and sustainable growth. But we must also ensure that on a global basis, the recovery is balanced and sustainable. And this means that far from Britain stepping back, we must step forward in Europe and within the G20 to inject new urgency into the delivery of the international agreements we have been reaching. The risk is that despite the traumatic shocks of the last 18 months, the world will all too easily default to former patterns and failed pathways. I believe there is now a real risk that if no action is taken, either the global imbalances which were the background to last year's crisis will re-emerge with a vengeance in 2011 and beyond - or the global economy will experience a lost decade of low growth and low employment. So we must now make a reality of the breakthrough we agreed in Pittsburgh - the first genuine attempt by countries representing 80 per cent of global GDP to coordinate and commit to change their national economic policies to aim for higher and sustainable global growth. As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has pointed out: without such co-ordination, countries' individual economic forecasts will simply not add up. We can not all export ourselves to sustainable growth. Together with a reformed IMF, the framework is the first step to a new system of international economic governance. But now is the time to turn the blue-print into concrete action. Europe has already been looking at how it, as a union, can contribute to this process. And good intentions are getting an early test within the Eurozone as countries grapple with how best to make it possible for Greece to reduce its own imbalances and rebuild market confidence. A duty fall...