INTERVIEW - No growth target at G20:Japan ex-MOF official

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Group of 20 financial leaders are unlikely to set national growth goals at their weekend meeting in Scotland even as they seek to firm up a plan to rebalance the world economy, a former Japanese currency tsar said on Wednesday.

Hiroshi Watanabe, who recently joined the Asian regional advisory board at the International Monetary Fund, said G20 members will pursue ways to mend a scar left by the global recession and prevent it from happening again.

But that does not mean that each country should come up with specific growth targets, he said.

"I haven't heard up till today they will come up with anything with specific numbers," said Watanabe, who served as vice finance minister for international affairs for three years to July 2007.

Governments are striving to push their economies back above their potential growth rates, but committing to a numerical growth target would be difficult because doing so would bind each country's economic policies, said Watanabe, who still has close contacts with Japanese policymakers.

Watanabe also said the Group of 20 major economies was unlikely to talk much about the dollar's weakness, a topic he said is better suited for debate among the G7 rich nations and China.

But he added that the dollar will remain a key global currency as there is no other unit to replace it as a reserve currency.

"The dollar itself has passed its peak," Watanabe said.