The upcoming G20 summit in Mexico will pursue a broad agenda, ranging from financial regulation, development issues, to the ongoing eurozone crisis, a U.S. senior official said on Tuesday.
The summit will cover "everything from continuing working on the framework for balanced, strong and sustainable growth to working on financial regulation," Michael Froman, the White House deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs, said at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In the development area, the summit, due to be held on June 18- 19 in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos, will focus on food security, infrastructure, green growth and trade, he said. "So it's really a broad agenda that cuts across a lot of different issues, ( including) energy, fossil fuel substitutes, etc."
Calling the ongoing eurozone crisis the "biggest issue" right now, Froman, the senior economic advisor for U.S. President Barack Obama, predicted that the G20 leaders will spend a " disproportionate" amount of their time to talk about the state of the global economy, "particularly what's going on in the eurozone. "
Washington has been pushing the Europeans to take more decisive measures to avert a worsening economic crisis. It is critical for Obama, who is locked in a neck-and-neck race with his Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney, to prevent the troubles in Europe from dragging the growth in America and hence, affecting his election.
While recognizing a "number of very important steps" taken by the Europeans in addressing the crisis, Froman said that it is " clear" now that the markets "expect more."
In a similar statement on Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that "there's no question that markets remain skeptical that the measures taken thus far are sufficient" to solve the crisis.
"So we obviously believe that more steps need to be taken," he said.