Europe and Asia meet as the crisis deepens

The weekend saw the conclusion of the biggest global summit that convened yet so far supposedly aimed to address the rapid spread of the financial crisis that originally broke out during the US housing meltdown just a few week ago. The summit brought nations from Europe and Asia and the event was held in the Chinese capital of Beijing. Many believe that the venue was just fitting since China is seen as the country with the best ability to shrug off the contagion that has already taken a number of countries as victims.

If there was something that came out of the summit, it was the adoption by the 45 participating heads of state of the Beijing Declaration which called for sustainable development by strengthening collaboration on environmental issues and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. As expected, a summit as huge as this did nothing to provide specific solutions to the pressing effects of the financial tsunami that could well likely turn into a worldwide recession.

Last week, Pakistan and Argentina became the latest countries that sought for either international assistance or employed drastic internal policies. Pakistan has already sent signals that it would be needing financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund and Argentina’s national government has nationalized their pension system in order to salvage their declining to ability to pay their financial obligations abroad.

Here at home, the Phisix continues to get battered and has fallen below the psychological 2,000-points mark. The peso is steadily weakening against the greenback which now stands at around 48.90 per dollar. A likely BSP intervention in the foreign exchange market could be in the offing once it slides further to 50 a dollar.