Canada finance minister says G20 near growth target, wants more from Europe

CAIRNS Australia (Reuters) - Canada's finance minister said on Saturday commitments made by G20 countries came "very close" to the target of adding an extra 2 percentage points to global economic growth and he urged European governments to increase stimulus where they could. More than 900 individual proposals have been submitted and analyzed by officials in the lead-up to the Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers, Joe Olive told Reuters. "We believe that these actions in total - and if implemented, that is key - would come very close to 2 percent," he said in an interview during the G20 meeting in the Australian city of Cairns. However with Europe not growing and inflation "worryingly low", governments there need to come up with "targeted, temporary and timely" stimulus plans while maintaining a goal of fiscal balance, the Canadian minister said. Earlier, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called for the euro zone and Japan to do more to boost demand and revive activity, singling out Germany as having scope to do much more thanks to its burgeoning trade surplus. But Germany has been resisting pressure to allow the euro zone to ease back on fiscal austerity or to boost its own economy through more government spending or tax cuts. While the Cairns meeting had not focused on the risk of asset bubbles, Oliver said there were causes for concern. "It seems that in the search for yield, investors are taking greater risks and when that happens there can be a comeuppance and one hopes it isn't a severe one." Oliver said Canada's government was watching the domestic housing market and the high level of consumer indebtedness very closely but did not believe there was a bubble, even with the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States. "An increase in rates is not the big danger. The big danger would be posed by a massive unemployment and we are not anticipating that at all," he said. Oliver said the AAA-rated Canadian economy continued to outperform, with a large infrastructure pipeline, a budget surplus expected next year and tax cuts on the cards. "We've signaled very clearly that we are not going down the irresponsible path of huge and reckless spending. We've worked too hard to get to a surplus and we're not going to blow it." (Reporting by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Gareth Jones)