LOCAL banks remained fairly stable in the face of Europe's debt woes and did not need the level of regulatory reform required elsewhere, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said yesterday.

LOCAL banks remained fairly stable in the face of Europe's debt woes and did not need the level of regulatory reform required elsewhere, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said yesterday.

But Gordhan, pictured, told a media briefing ahead of this weekend's G20 summit in Toronto that SA would have to look for other trading partners, as existing key markets were likely to be effected by the present crisis.

Gordhan said one challenge facing the G20 meeting was how to return to a coordinated effort in grappling with the crisis without undermining global economic growth. The meeting should, however, not prescribe a uniform formula for all countries.

He said South Africa was "a bit concerned that the level of coordination that we saw initially at the G20 is not the level of coordination that we are seeing now".

SA, like other countries, would have to answer tough questions on how to restructure its economy to be more competitive, while also exploring new markets.

One of the challenges the domestic economy faced was creating jobs, Gordhan reiterated, adding that recent employment numbers which show joblessness ticked up in the first quarter of this year were "depressing". - Reuters