Brown Reassures Business Leaders
Gordon Brown has told business leaders that the chancellor will today act to deal with the global financial crisis.Speaking at the CBI conference in London, the prime minister said the government was tackling systemic problems with the banking sector and resource shortages.
Brown said he would ensure that the UK's workforce was retrained to take advantage of new opportunities after the recession.
The prime minister said: "Let's name one of the great challenges: the global financial system. Even if there had been no systemic banking crisis, we have come to a time when the global flows of capital need to be complemented by a global - not just a nationally-based - framework of supervision.
"Challenge number two is that of finite global resources: even if there had been no oil spike, our over-dependence on oil, the problem of climate change and indeed global food shortages would have to be addressed by new policies.
"Challenge number three is global restructuring and global inequalities: even if
there had been no cyclical rise in unemployment, all of us would have to deal
with the consequences of a more specialist international division of labour and
the resulting restructuring of jobs, and for Britain that means investing in the new talents and skills required for the technological and creative industries.
"Some might want to take a narrow and insular view of today's global crisis -
some would say that the best we can do is to let the recession take its course,
and that there is no alternative but to muddle through.
"But there is another way of looking at it: whatever the troubles of this year and next, we are in the midst of a transition to a truly global economy which in twenty years is likely to double in size."
Concluding, the prime minister said that despite the economic crisis it is a time for confidence with real incomes picking up next year as national and international policies work through the economy.
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