Liberia, as part of the global community, is not out of the claws of the ongoing threatening global financial crisis, and is therefore endeavoring on a way out, as it holds a roundtable think-tank today in Monrovia to advance formulas, suggestions and solutions.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, herself an economist by profession, will chair the meeting which promises to look at prospects aimed at tackling the issue so as to mitigate its advancing impact.

Making the revelation yesterday at a press conference, Finance Minister Augustine Ngafuan, who has returned from Tunisia for a African Development Bank meeting of African Ministers, said the essence of the roundtable is to whittle out ways and means out of the meltdown.

"At home, the government of Liberia is monitoring the developments, and will host a roundtable only the financial crisis on today Wednesday, November19, 2008 at 4PM.

The round table will be chaired by president and will include member of the Economic Management Team, the business community academic development partners and other stakeholders," he said.

He stressed that the roundtable is aimed at discussing the impact of the crisis on Liberia and to consider options for mitigating the impact of the crisis on the economy and local stakeholders

This is the first time the government is taking such move to address itself to "Triple Financial Impact," the first in about thee decades, joining other countries that are playing a leading role in similar path.

About three days ago, world leaders of the 20 financial power houses met in Washington, D.C., at the invitation of outgoing US President Bush, to stumble on what could be the way out.

The conference did not reach any a legitimate outcome, but they pledged to meet early next year in London to continue where they stopped.

Expanding on discussions held amongst financial experts at the organized ADB meeting, necessitated by the global financial crisis, which puts leading economies into state of recession, Minister Ngafuan said: The conference was called to discuss for global financial crisis and to consider options for mitigating its likely impact on African economies, including Liberia."

"First, I represented the government of Liberia at a ministerial conference on responses to the financial crisis, co- chaired by the president of the African Development Bank, the chair of the African Union Commission and the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa," the Finance Minister said, but noted "while Africa and Liberia is not expected to be directly impacted in a significant manner from the crisis, there are likely to be second round effects that do impact us."

There are genuine concerns relative to how the issue will affect trade and other interchangeable trans-country and transcontinental flows of programs and activities.

However, according to him, the global showdown is likely to lead to "diminished trade, reduced investment and a declined in remittance."

He noted that each of these will affect Africa's prospects for reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he acknowledged, "We thus face a human as well as financial crisis".

As a saving method, he said, participants noted that in spite of the financial crisis and its attendant challenges, previous commitments on improving donor flows as well as the quality of such flows should be kept.

"We also discussed the implications for the international financial architecture and the need for Africa's voice to be heard in the midst of the current turmoil".

"I was accorded the honor of having been invited by the ADB President Keberuka along with a selected group of five African Finance ministers to participate in a conference call with U.S Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Clay Lowery to put forth Africa's concerns to the G-20 meeting which took place over the weekend," Ngafuan said in a statement.

Flanked by his Deputy for Administration, Tarnue Mawolo, he said he told the conference about the importance of preserving donor commitments and for our concerns over the impact of the crisis to Africa to be transmitted to leaders of the G-20 as they met in Washington.

He said he and his delegation held a series of meetings regarding the ADB's ongoing work in Liberia

"We're pleased to announce that we have successfully negotiated a direct budget support operation with ADB pending approval by the ADB board in mid-December 2008. ADB will give Liberia approximately US$18M in direct budget support in fiscal years 2008-2009 and 2009-20010".

The amount, according to him, will go toward strengthening public financial management, modernizing revenue administration, strengthening internal audit and procurement across government, and responding to the adverse impact of the food crisis.

He said direct budget support from ADB represents the largest amount of all channeled directly through the government to date, which is little over US$200M.

"This shows the continued faith of partners in our rapidly improving public financial management efforts and the ambitious reform effort the government has under taken under the visionary leadership of President Sirleaf".

He said they were of hope that the assistance will encourage other partners to follow the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the government of France and others in using government systems, to maximize the positive impact of aid and simultaneously these systems.

More than that, he Minister Ngafuan said other productive discussions were held with the ADB Vice president Joseph Eichenberger and the Head of Technical Assistance Unit Mrs. EL-Bakri.

These discussions, he noted largely focused on Liberia's debt to the ADB and technical assistance to Liberia. The government of Liberia thanks the ADB for their continued exceptional support in helping the country rebuild