Industrialized Nations

The Group of Seven leading industrialized nations Saturday expressed "total satisfaction" with President Clinton's $50-billion international aid package for Mexico after European critics of the plan were mollified by U.S. officials. In a joint statement delivered Saturday by Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin, the seven finance officials meeting here also expressed deep concern about climbing inflation in Russia and Moscow's struggles in implementing economic reforms.

A clash between leading industrial and developing member states of the International Monetary Fund killed a $52-billion aid plan meant to help poor nations participate in expanding global trade. IMF members, split over the size of the aid plan proposed by the IMF's managing director, Michel Camdessus, also failed to extend a program for easy-term loans to ex-Soviet bloc states.

On paper, the idea shines with a brilliance that ought to attract President Clinton: Assemble all the leaders of the world in a U.N. conference dealing with the torment of the hundreds of millions of people falling by the wayside in an era of change. But diplomats preparing for the World Social Summit--or, as it is sometimes called, the People's Summit--in Copenhagen in March are worried.

The United States, boosted by its emergence from recession, has replaced long-dominant Japan as the world's most competitive economy, according to an international study released today. Singapore comes a close second in a league table covering 41 developed and major developing countries. Japan, wracked by political and economic woes, was pushed into third place, the annual World Competitiveness Report says.

Stocks are expected to decline today in Tokyo following the death of North Korea's leader and a disappointing meeting of the Group of Seven nations this weekend that yielded little support for the sagging dollar. After leaders of the world's major industrial countries failed to come to its rescue, the dollar resumed its decline against the yen. The dollar opened at 98.30 yen on the Tokyo foreign exchange market today, down 0.23 from Friday's close.

The 20th Century, an era of unparalleled economic progress and improved living conditions, may ultimately be judged instead by a starkly different trend: the staggering gap between rich and poor. The latest numbers reveal painful divisions. At the close of the century, the richest 1 billion people--or 20% of world population--control almost 85% of global wealth, while the poorest 1 billion command less than 2%, according to the new Human Development Report, a survey by the U.N.

Concern about unemployment drew the finance ministers of Europe, Japan and the United States to the recent summit in Detroit, but who spoke for the rest of the world? Unemployment rates in the industrialized countries are at the highest levels since the Great Depression--6.5% in the United States and 12% in Western Europe. But unemployment rates in much of the developing world already average 40% to 50%.

World economic growth should start gathering pace next year, but due to heavy private and public debts growth still will be too slow to stop an inexorable rise in unemployment, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday. Almost 35 million people, or 8.5% of the work force of the OECD's 24 member nations, could be without a job by mid-1994, up from slightly more than 34 million now.

Meeting less than a week after new political turmoil erupted in Moscow, the finance ministers of the leading industrial democracies renewed their commitment Saturday to help bail Russia out of its economic morass. But they offered no new funding for Boris N. Yeltsin's government nor an acceleration of their already pledged multibillion-dollar assistance. In a written statement issued after the session, at which they were joined by Russian Finance Minister Boris G.