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In a few days, the G-7 and G-10 will be meeting here in Washington as well as the Interim and Development Committees. I'd like to take a few minutes to discuss the agenda for these meetings.
These meetings offer the opportunity to advance America's economic interests in the world in two fundamental ways.
The first is by encouraging growth and development in the world economy, not just in the G-7, but also in the developing and transition economies. This is vitally important to the United States: Our jobs, exports and living standards are increasingly affected by whether our global partners are prosperous and growing.
In our meetings over the next several days, we'll touch on the global economic picture and the issues all of us face. The United States comes to these meetings from a position of economic strength. Under President Clinton's leadership, the U.S. economy has performed remarkably well over the past three years. Overall, the global economy is continuing to grow at a healthy pace, providing demand for U.S. exports, which in turn will help sustain the U.S. economy.
Prospects have improved in Japan and Europe, but growth in those regions still looks quite moderate and obviously there are issues that need to be dealt with in each area, as there are in all countries, including our own. In Japan, it's important that they continue to direct policies at the objective of promoting a strong domestic demand-led recovery. We are, of course, always interested in growth in Europe, too. We look forward to a discussion by our European colleagues about their progress toward EMU and the implications of these developments for the world economy.
One of our priorities is to encourage continued growth in the developing world and in transitional economies. These countries, already the fastest growing U.S. export market, hold enormous potential as markets for U.S. exports of goods and services --- from the developing countries in Asia, which account for 23 percent of world GDP, to Latin America, the second fastest growing economic region in the world, to Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, 25 countries with more than 400 million people. Treasury will host a series of important discussions with key emerging market and transition economies in the Americas, Asia, Africa and with Russia to explore ways to strengthen U.S. economic ties. In fact, today I'll be meeting with one of my Russian counterparts regarding a forum I am co-chairing with SEC Chairman Arthur Levin to provide policy advice from the U.S. private sector to the Russian capital markets.
The second opportunity we have through these meetings for advancing U.S. economic interests in the global economy is to strengthen the international financial institutions to deal with new challenges in the world economy.
The President began the process two years ago in Naples, and then outlined an extensive set of initiatives which were adopted by the G-7 at the Halifax Summit. We have made substantial progress in implementing those initiatives. We are in the process of putting in place new measures to help prevent and better manage future financial crises through strong disclosure standards, an agreement to expand the resources available to the IMF in financial emergencies and efforts to develop market based solutions to these problems.
On the development agenda, we have found broad support in the international financial institutions for a set of reforms designed to focus the attention of these institutions on challenges not met adequately by the private financial markets. This means focussing more selectively on the poorest developing countries, on education and health care, and on the environment. And it means encouraging these institutions to be more innovative in designing new financial mechanisms to catalyze private financial flows.
And, finally, we are moving closer to an agreement to launch the multilateral debt initiative, which will reduce for the first time the debt owed to international financial institutions by a group of the poorest developing countries that establish strong records of macro performance and commit to strong policies.
Looking forward, the G-7 are now turning their attention to a series of initiatives to strengthen safeguards in the global financial markets, including improved cooperation among regulators and supervisors, stronger requirements for transparency and risk management in derivatives transactions, and stronger financial systems in emerging markets. We are in the process of launching a number of initiatives in these areas, which we hope to bring to fruition by next spring.
As I said earlier, we have an enormous interest in the economic prosperity of nations around the globe. In this new global economy, the G-7 and other similar fora are very important, not only for the specific business we do, but for providing ongoing opportunities for countries to talk to each other, and build a framework of understanding that enables us to act when we need to act.
I can say from my own experience after two years as Treasury Secretary that they are extremely important -- for both Americans and the global community at large, in the immediate future and in the years and decades to come.