By IRNA,
London : Prime Minister Gordon Brown held breakfast talks Tuesday with the heads of Britain’s top banks on credit crunch and the world’s economic crisis.
After the meeting, Brown said that ‘a range of measures’ to get confidence back in the housing market were discussed in a 90-minute summit.
He said that he recognized people’s concerns in trying to get a mortgage but insisted that he would not be diverted from taking ‘unpopular’ decisions to ensure Britain gets through the global credit crunch.
The meeting came as a report by property surveyors found that house prices in the UK are falling at their fastest rate since records began 30 years ago.
In a statement issued after the meeting, the prime minister’s office said the government had been working for some time with the Bank of England and lenders to develop ‘further proposals’ to help the functioning of the money markets.
It also confirmed that, as planned, the Bank of England was injecting a further pnds 15 billion (dlrs 30 bn) of liquidity into the markets, taking the total injected over recent months to pnds 50 bn.
Next week, House Minister Caroline Flint is expected to join forces with Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to step up pressure on Britain’s mortgage lenders to offer existing and new borrowers a fair deal.
The decline in housing prices follows last year’s collapse of Northern Rock, Britain’s fifth biggest mortgage lender, which has been blamed on a worldwide credit crisis originating in the US.
According to the daily Guardian, Brown was due later Tuesday to describe the current financial crisis as perhaps ‘the first financial crisis of this new era of globalization’ in a speech at the Goldman Sachs headquarters.
He was also expected to call for ‘better dialogue and
understanding’ between oil producers and oil consumers with prices continuing to soar to record levels and for oil exporters to increase production.