The OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria issued a passionate appeal for economic reform, stressing that effective measures could boost output across the world's crisis-hit economies. Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) advanced and developing countries here, which will focus on economic reforms among other topics, Gurria said the recent crisis had acted as a "catalyst for reforms." Praising reforms carried out in debt-mired eurozone countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy, Gurria said OECD research had showed that effective reforms could boost output "by as much as one percent annually on average across the OECD area over the next decade." "The bad news is that we needed a crisis of this magnitude to get things going," Gurria noted. He acknowledged it was hard for politicians to concentrate on long-term structural reforms when they were engaged in the day-to-day battle against the crisis, but urged policymakers to take the longer view. "It is always said that because we are in a crisis, we cannot afford to take structural measures and we should face this short-term crisis because otherwise the situation will get worse," Gurria said. "But in the end ... good measures taken at the proper time and communicated in the proper way do have faster effects than one would think," he added. Gurria was speaking ahead of a meeting in Mexico City of finance ministers and central bankers from the G20, which will focus on forging ways out of the crisis and creating a stronger financial system for the future. Responding to Gurria's comments, Mexican Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said the environment has brightened in recent weeks, noting: "We are not as fragile as we were before." Recent good news from the eurozone and the United States should not however blind policymakers to the need to take longer-term structural measures to improve their economies, said the minister. "We have no choice but to go for structural reforms. They are worth undertaking and they will also bring results in the short
