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Global business leaders fret about growth

REUTERS, Davos, Switzerland
Tepid optimism and gnawing concerns.
This is the state of mind of a number of global business leaders and policy-makers gathering at this ski resort for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of the rich and powerful.
While noting that a recovery is slowly underway, they remain concerned about Europe's struggling economy, a spendthrift United states and a burgeoning Chinese economy. But most of all, what concerns many of them is the possibility of the dollar crashing. All these factors, they say, darkens the global economic outlook and could upset recovery in 2004.
"I am optimistic but I am worried. I am concerned, " said stephan Newhouse, president of investment banking giant Morgan stanley UsA.
For several years, the United states has driven recovery world-
wide. "That is not sustainable. That is a big question for me," he said.
If the United states stumbles, the global engine sputters.
The global economy is expected to expand by 3.5 percent in 2004 -its fastest pace in several years, according to United Nations' forecasts. But it is very lopsided.
The United states is sucking in imports from all over the world, driving up the U.s. current account deficit as Americans borrow heavily. This, combined with the huge U.s. budget deficit, is forcing down the value of the Us dollar in currency markets. The euro is bearing the brunt of the dollar's fall, rising 20 percent last year.
Meanwhile, Asian countries, especially Japan and China, are keeping their currencies artificially weak to compete in global export markets, fueling concerns of a dollar crash.
Europe already is feeling the pain, said French Finance Minister Francis Mer.
"The value of the currency for some corporations presently starts to be endangering the potential growth of results. It is a fact," Mer told Reuters.
Mutual fund companies are worried too. "What do I say to investors with their assets, their savings, in U.s. dollars? How can they protect themselves?" said Prakash Hinduja, European president of Hinduja Group of Companies, a financial services company with clients in India, Germany and switzerland.
It's a question of how to get more balanced global growth -- a challenge that confronts finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of seven rich nations when they meet in Florida in two weeks.
Deputy German Finance Minister Caio Koch-Weser told Reuters these issues are firmly on the G7 agenda. "Clearly the euro should not bear the burden of external imbalances," he said.