IMF, EU resources enough for eurozone crisis

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that the current financial resources of the International Monetary Fund and the European Union are enough to deal with the eurozone debt crisis. Geithner said in a CNBC television from Paris, where Group of 20 finance chiefs have gathered for a meeting, that there was no need to beef up the IMF's resources to help Europe surmount the sovereign debt crisis and restore confidence to markets in the single currency zone. "As we look at the world today, the IMF has very substantial, uncommitted, available financial resources," he said. "Of course, Europe as a whole has resources available to help with the financial problems. The problems that they are facing there in Europe are complicated to solve, but well within the resources that Europe has." Earlier South Africa Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan warned that IMF and EU resources may be "inadequate" if debt contagion spreads further. Gordhan said the so-called BRICS nations -- Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa -- could be called in to assist struggling European economies. "The bigger of the BRICS countries have said that they would be in a position to help international institutions if they are requested to," he said. Geithner said he saw that Europe's leaders were making progress on resolving the crisis, currently focused on containing a much-expected default by Greece on its debt, which could hurt European banks and damage other financially weak governments' ability to fund themselves. "Europe is clearly moving," he said. "If you look at what they've been saying, they are talking about a much more comprehensive package of measures, backing off the sovereign markets. And those are the kinds of things that they need to do," he told CNBC. "The hard part is still ahead, which is design a strategy that meets those objectives." "What you need is the clear commitment by the governments, that they will do what is necessary to hold this together and put as much resources behind this as is necessary. And that's what they are trying to do," he added.