PARIS, Feb 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Friday that confidence was growing in a sustained global recovery but it was important to keep track of forces that can destabilize growth.
"Of course, we have to look at measures of imbalances. There's no alternative," he said at a high-level seminar organized by the Eurofi think tank. "We need to look at measures of external imbalances like the current account as well as ... internal imbalances."
Shortly before Geithner spoke, China rejected plans to use real exchange rates and currency reserves to measures global economic imbalances.
Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren also said the G20 should use trade figures rather than current account balances to assess economic distortions. [ID:nLDE71H0AV]
Geithner sounded bullish about the world economy's prospects.
"There's justifiable growing confidence out there," he said.
"You're seeing the challenges and risks shift, the emerging world growing very rapidly, and facing the challenge of how to use monetary policy to help contain inflation pressures.
"Europe seems to make progress towards financial reform. I think the markets are showing more confidence and optimism in the political commitment of Europe to addres those challenges," he said. (Reporting by Glenn Somerville and Dan Flynn, editing by Mike Peacock)