Countries should avoid protectionist measures: Obama

WASHINGTON: As countries across the world are increasingly feeling the pinch of the global economic recession, the US President, Barack H Obama, has asked the governments to avoid falling into the trap of going into protectionist measures.

"The last thing, I think, that we have to pay some attention to is making sure that we're not dropping back into protectionism," Obama told a business round table, which comprised of top US CEOs, yesterday.

He was responding to a question on his upcoming trip to London to attend the G-20 Summit on April 2.

"So far at least, we're seeing some movement to contain protectionist sentiments in these various domestic markets, but we have to build on that," he said.

"I think having a strong statement that encourages trade and making sure that there are sufficient credit lines for trade, because that is one of the big problems that we've seen right now in terms of world trade is, it's just very hard to -- the traditional mechanisms for lending that facilitate trade have really contracted," Obama said.

Looking forward to attending the London meeting, Obama said he already has had a series of meetings with several leaders of the G-20 countries, including the heads of State of Britain, Mexico, Japan and Canada.