Group of Seven Finance Chiefs Will Convene

Finance ministers and central bankers of the United States and its major economic allies--known as the Group of Seven--will meet in Paris on April 7 for a broad-scale review of the global economy, international sources said Wednesday.

Officials cautioned that the session, the first that the ministers and central bankers have held since last September, is not an emergency meeting and no major policy decisions are expected.

Nevertheless, the gathering will come at a time of unusual volatility in international financial markets and rising interest rates in West Germany and Japan, which have threatened to push interest rates up in the United States and the other industrialized countries.

Although Bush Administration officials have said repeatedly that they are not concerned about upward pressure on U.S. interest rates, central bankers of some of the economic allies fear that the rate-hike fever may spread.

Financial markets were volatile Wednesday amid rumors that lower-level finance officials of the Group of Seven countries were meeting in Tokyo. Sources here said that session was unofficial and did not include American or West German representatives.

Although the group met in secret for years, it gained worldwide prominence in September, 1985, when it launched an international effort to drive down the value of the dollar, whose rise over the previous six years had distorted global trade patterns.

The April meeting was set following a trip by U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady to Europe last week to visit finance ministers of four European countries. U.S. officials said Brady returned with a feeling that the policy coordinantion process that the group had established in earlier years should be bolstered in view of recent changes in Eastern Europe and other developments.

Besides the United States and West Germany, the group includes Japan, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.