Europe debt crisis shows world troubles 'far from over'

The sovereign debt crisis in Europe shows that the world's economic woes are "far from over" and highlights the need for reforms, the vice chairman of the World Economic Forum said today.

"What we... see as we gather in the growing storm of a European sovereign debt crisis is that the (global) crisis is far from over, that it is in many ways rekindled in a dangerous new contagion," Mark Malloch-Brown said.

"The need to get the right international financial reforms in place remains as pressing as ever," Malloch-Brown said at the opening session of a two-day World Economic Forum Global Redesign Summit in Doha.

But, "this is not about any kind of single global fix," he told AFP on the sidelines of the summit. "It's finding smart ideas which work for particular issues."

The European crisis has stemmed from Greece's heavily indebted economy and from turmoil in the Spanish banking sector, and has raised fears that some eurozone economies will no longer be in a position to repay debts.

World stocks and the euro, which dropped to a four-year low against the dollar last week, have been under severe pressure due to concerns over the debt crisis.

However, Malloch-Brown said that Europe's debt troubles could provide an impetus for reforms.

"If last year's experience is anything to go by, a lot of the work on improved financial systems occurred while the crisis was very hot," he said. But "we'll have to see whether a renewal of the crisis has that effect or not."