国际英语新闻：U.S. Treasury Secretary urges to bring greater urgency to financial reform

LONDON, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Saturday stressed the need to bring greater urgency to the financial reform agenda.

    After a meeting of the G20 finance ministers in London this weekend, Geithner said the G20 officials have broad agreement on a very strong set of principles and objectives for building a more stable global financial system.

    The United States is to put in place stronger constraints on risk taking across the financial system, to bring comprehensive oversight to key institutions and to critical markets, such as derivatives, to reform the securities markets and to provide the tools necessary to wind down firms that fail, he said.

    Geithner stressed that a crucial part of financial reform is to change compensation practices, adding that "we have proposed legislation to require firms to submit compensation practices to an approval by shareholders."

    Another critical part of the reform agenda is building stronger international financial institutions, the U.S. treasury secretary said.

    "We need these institutions to play a greater role in preventing future crises, with stronger surveillance by the IMF, need the multilateral development banks to focus their efforts on the key priorities of fighting poverty, supporting higher productivity in agriculture, building the institutions necessary for private investment and growth, and facilitating the transition to a green economy," he said.

    He added: "We must reform the institutions' governance structures to better reflect the important role of emerging market and developing economies."