Developed countries had to become more aware of the impact of their actions on emerging markets and manage their internal and global affairs accordingly, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a Bloomberg and Business Day business breakfast, in Johannesburg, he pointed out that the actions of developed countries had a spill-over effect on the rest of the world.

“What developed countries do or do not do has a spill-over effect on the rest of the globe and, therefore, developed countries should take into account that, through owning the reserve currency, they are dominating the world economy,” he said.

These comments were made in light of the expected announcement by US Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke on Wednesday as to whether the US central bank will taper off its massive quantitative easing programme, which was designed to boost the recovery of the US economy.

“Attention will be focused on Bernanke to see whether his pronouncements will remedy the disjuncture between his previous announcement, the intent underlying that announcement and the way it was perceived by the market,” Gordhan said.

During a debate on the 2013 Appropriation Bill on Tuesday, Gordhan told the National Assembly that it was likely that if the markets did not like what Bernanke said, or interpreted what he said in a particular way, that it could introduce shock waves very similar to what was experienced about two weeks ago in the financial markets around the world.

“The hope is that he would be able to communicate most strongly that while the intent is to taper its quantitative easing programme, it would be based on objective data emerging from the US economy itself and would not happen suddenly,” he said.

Gordhan added that the past two weeks had proven that miscommunication, or the lack of adequate communication, could have serious consequences on emerging markets and the manner in which inflows and outflows operate within them and noted that, even though many might believe there was an economic shift towards the East, the US was still economically significant.