G7 finance ministers in Istanbul discuss recovery plan
ISTANBUL: The finance chiefs of the Group of Seven richest countries meet in Istanbul Saturday in the shadow of the Group of 20, which declared itself a week ago the world’s top international economic forum.
Meeting on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors were to discuss a raft of objectives agreed at the Pittsburgh summit of the 20 largest rich and developing countries.
“The main topic will be a follow-up on Pittsburgh on what we have to do to fulfill the objectives,” a senior US Treasury official told reporters at a briefing this week.
The Istanbul meeting will be the opportunity to discuss “the next steps and the implementation” of the G20 road map, which sets out the path for recovery from the worst recession since World War II and future sustained growth.
Though the G20, which includes the G7 and emerging economies such as China and India, now occupies the premier rung of the international ladder, the G7 has not lost its usefulness, he said.
The G7 remains “a valuable format for finance ministers,” the Treasury official said, adding that it groups “the largest creditors in the system.”
The G7 – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US – also are heavyweights in the IMF, and as such are expected to discuss the decision by G20 leaders to reform the 186-nation institution.
At their summit, the G20 also endorsed a shift in IMF quota share, or voting power, of “at least five percent” to emerging market and developing countries, considered under-represented, from the advanced economies, mainly European countries.
They also backed a minimum 3.0 percent increase in voting rights to the developing countries at the IMF’s sibling institution, the World Bank.
Several G7 nations, including France, oppose a simple transfer of power to the emerging countries, noting that some European countries are also under-represented at the two institutions. – AFP
