Tuesday, November 17, 2009

G-20




Martin Redrado, Argentina's Central Bank Pres



Korn Chatikavanij, Thai FM







Pascal Lamy, WTO Dir-General. Doha Round talks


Pittsburgh G20 Summit meeting table






The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors was established in 1999 to bring together systemically important industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy. The inaugural meeting of the G-20 took place in Berlin, on December 1516, 1999, hosted by German and Canadian finance ministers.



Mandate

The G-20 is an informal forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability. By contributing to the strengthening of the international financial architecture and providing opportunities for dialogue on national policies, international co-operation, and international financial institutions, the G-20 helps to support growth and development across the globe.



Origins

The G-20 was created as a response both to the financial crises of the late 1990s and to a growing recognition that key emerging-market countries were not adequately included in the core of global economic discussion and governance. Prior to the G-20 creation, similar groupings to promote dialogue and analysis had been established at the initiative of the G-7. The G-22 met at Washington D.C. in April and October 1998. Its aim was to involve non-G-7 countries in the resolution of global aspects of the financial crisis then affecting emerging-market countries. Two subsequent meetings comprising a larger group of participants (G-33) held in March and April 1999 discussed reforms of the global economy and the international financial system. The proposals made by the G-22 and the G-33 to reduce the world economy's susceptibility to crises showed the potential benefits of a regular international consultative forum embracing the emerging-market countries. Such a regular dialogue with a constant set of partners was institutionalized by the creation of the G-20 in 1999.



Membership

The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries:



Argentina

Australia

Brazil

Canada

China

France

Germany

India

Indonesia

Italy

Japan

Mexico

Russia

Saudi Arabia

South Africa

South Korea

Turkey

United Kingdom

United States of America

The European Union, who is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member of the G-20. To ensure global economic fora and institutions work together, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the President of the World Bank, plus the chairs of the International Monetary and Financial Committee and Development Committee of the IMF and World Bank, also participate in G-20 meetings on an ex-officio basis. The G-20 thus brings together important industrial and emerging-market countries from all regions of the world. Together, member countries represent around 90 per cent of global gross national product, 80 per cent of world trade (including EU intra-trade) as well as two-thirds of the world's population. The G-20's economic weight and broad membership gives it a high degree of legitimacy and influence over the management of the global economy and financial system.



Achievements

The G-20 has progressed a range of issues since 1999, including agreement about policies for growth, reducing abuse of the financial system, dealing with financial crises and combating terrorist financing. The G-20 also aims to foster the adoption of internationally recognized standards through the example set by its members in areas such as the transparency of fiscal policy and combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In 2004, G-20 countries committed to new higher standards of transparency and exchange of information on tax matters. This aims to combat abuses of the financial system and illicit activities including tax evasion. The G-20 also plays a signficant role in matters concerned with the reform of the international financial architecture.



The G-20 has also aimed to develop a common view among members on issues related to further development of the global economic and financial system and held an extraordinary meeting in the margins of the 2008 IMF and World Bank annual meetings in recognition of the current economic situation. At this meeting, in accordance with the G-20s core mission to promote open and constructive exchanges between advanced and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability and growth, the Ministers and Governors discussed the present financial market crisis and its implications for the world economy. They stressed their resolve to work together to overcome the financial turmoil and to deepen cooperation to improve the regulation, supervision and the overall functioning of the worlds financial markets.



Chair

Unlike international institutions such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), IMF or World Bank, the G-20 (like the G-7) has no permanent staff of its own. The G-20 chair rotates between members, and is selected from a different regional grouping of countries each year. In 2009 the G-20 chair is the United Kingdom, and in 2010 it will be South Korea. The chair is part of a revolving three-member management Troika of past, present and future chairs. The incumbent chair establishes a temporary secretariat for the duration of its term, which coordinates the group's work and organizes its meetings. The role of the Troika is to ensure continuity in the G-20's work and management across host years.



Former G-20 Chairs

1999-2001 Canada

2002 India

2003 Mexico

2004 Germany

2005 China

2006 Australia

2007 South Africa

2008 Brazil

Meetings and activities

It is normal practice for the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors to meet once a year. The last meeting of ministers and governors was held in São Paulo, Brazil on 8-9 November 2008. The ministers' and governors' meeting is usually preceded by two deputies' meetings and extensive technical work. This technical work takes the form of workshops, reports and case studies on specific subjects, that aim to provide ministers and governors with contemporary analysis and insights, to better inform their consideration of policy challenges and options.



Towards the end of 2008 Leaders of the G-20 Countries meet in Washington. See the Declaration and action plan from the Washington Summit (extracted from : PDF 72KB)  following this G-20 brief. This meeting remitted follow up work to Finance Ministers. In addition to their November meeting in order to take forward this work in advance of the Leaders summit in London on 2nd April Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors will also meet in March 2009. A deputies meeting will be held in February 2009 to prepare for the Ministers meeting.



G-20 Events

Deputies Meeting 1st February 2009



Officials Workshop Financing for Climate Change 13th & 14th February 2009



Deputies Meeting 13th March 2009



Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting 14th March 2009



Officials Workshop on Global Economy 25th 26th May 2009



Deputies Meeting 27th & 28th June 2009



Officials Workshop on Sustainable Financing for Development July 2009



Deputies Meeting 3rd & 4th September 2009



Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting 4th & 5th September 2009



Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting 6th & 7th November 2009



Interaction with other international organizations

The G-20 cooperates closely with various other major international organizations and fora, as the potential to develop common positions on complex issues among G-20 members can add political momentum to decision-making in other bodies. The participation of the President of the World Bank, the Managing Director of the IMF and the chairs of the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee in the G-20 meetings ensures that the G-20 process is well integrated with the activities of the Bretton Woods Institutions. The G-20 also works with, and encourages, other international groups and organizations, such as the Financial Stability Forum, in progressing international and domestic economic policy reforms. In addition, experts from private-sector institutions and non-government organisations are invited to G-20 meetings on an ad hoc basis in order to exploit synergies in analyzing selected topics and avoid overlap.



External communication

The country currently chairing the G-20 posts details of the group's meetings and work program on a dedicated website. Although participation in the meetings is reserved for members, the public is informed about what was discussed and agreed immediately after the meeting of ministers and governors has ended. After each meeting of ministers and governors, the G-20 publishes a communiqué which records the agreements reached and measures outlined. Material on the forward work program is also made public.
















DECLARATION


SUMMIT ON FINANCIAL MARKETS AND THE WORLD ECONOMY

November 15, 2008

1. We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, held an initial meeting in Washington on

November 15, 2008, amid serious challenges to the world economy and financial

markets. We are determined to enhance our cooperation and work together to restore

global growth and achieve needed reforms in the world’s financial systems.

2. Over the past months our countries have taken urgent and exceptional measures to

support the global economy and stabilize financial markets. These efforts must continue.

At the same time, we must lay the foundation for reform to help to ensure that a global

crisis, such as this one, does not happen again. Our work will be guided by a shared

belief that market principles, open trade and investment regimes, and effectively

regulated financial markets foster the dynamism, innovation, and entrepreneurship that

are essential for economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction.

Root Causes of the Current Crisis

3. During a period of strong global growth, growing capital flows, and prolonged

stability earlier this decade, market participants sought higher yields without an adequate

appreciation of the risks and failed to exercise proper due diligence. At the same time,

weak underwriting standards, unsound risk management practices, increasingly complex

and opaque financial products, and consequent excessive leverage combined to create

vulnerabilities in the system. Policy-makers, regulators and supervisors, in some

advanced countries, did not adequately appreciate and address the risks building up in

financial markets, keep pace with financial innovation, or take into account the systemic

ramifications of domestic regulatory actions.

4. Major underlying factors to the current situation were, among others, inconsistent and

insufficiently coordinated macroeconomic policies, inadequate structural reforms, which

led to unsustainable global macroeconomic outcomes. These developments, together,

contributed to excesses and ultimately resulted in severe market disruption.

Actions Taken and to Be Taken

5. We have taken strong and significant actions to date to stimulate our economies,

provide liquidity, strengthen the capital of financial institutions, protect savings and

deposits, address regulatory deficiencies, unfreeze credit markets, and are working to

ensure that international financial institutions (IFIs) can provide critical support for the

global economy.

6. But more needs to be done to stabilize financial markets and support economic

growth. Economic momentum is slowing substantially in major economies and the

global outlook has weakened. Many emerging market economies, which helped sustain

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the world economy this decade, are still experiencing good growth but increasingly are

being adversely impacted by the worldwide slowdown.

7. Against this background of deteriorating economic conditions worldwide, we agreed

that a broader policy response is needed, based on closer macroeconomic cooperation, to

restore growth, avoid negative spillovers and support emerging market economies and

developing countries. As immediate steps to achieve these objectives, as well as to

address longer-term challenges, we will:

• Continue our vigorous efforts and take whatever further actions are necessary to

stabilize the financial system.

• Recognize the importance of monetary policy support, as deemed appropriate to

domestic conditions.

• Use fiscal measures to stimulate domestic demand to rapid effect, as appropriate,

while maintaining a policy framework conducive to fiscal sustainability.

• Help emerging and developing economies gain access to finance in current difficult

financial conditions, including through liquidity facilities and program support. We

stress the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) important role in crisis response,

welcome its new short-term liquidity facility, and urge the ongoing review of its

instruments and facilities to ensure flexibility.

• Encourage the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to use

their full capacity in support of their development agenda, and we welcome the recent

introduction of new facilities by the World Bank in the areas of infrastructure and

trade finance.

• Ensure that the IMF, World Bank and other MDBs have sufficient resources to

continue playing their role in overcoming the crisis.

Common Principles for Reform of Financial Markets

8. In addition to the actions taken above, we will implement reforms that will strengthen

financial markets and regulatory regimes so as to avoid future crises. Regulation is first

and foremost the responsibility of national regulators who constitute the first line of

defense against market instability. However, our financial markets are global in scope,

therefore, intensified international cooperation among regulators and strengthening of

international standards, where necessary, and their consistent implementation is

necessary to protect against adverse cross-border, regional and global developments

affecting international financial stability. Regulators must ensure that their actions

support market discipline, avoid potentially adverse impacts on other countries, including

regulatory arbitrage, and support competition, dynamism and innovation in the

marketplace. Financial institutions must also bear their responsibility for the turmoil and

should do their part to overcome it including by recognizing losses, improving disclosure

and strengthening their governance and risk management practices.

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9. We commit to implementing policies consistent with the following common principles

for reform.



Strengthening Transparency and Accountability:

We will strengthen financial

market transparency, including by enhancing required disclosure on complex

financial products and ensuring complete and accurate disclosure by firms of their

financial conditions. Incentives should be aligned to avoid excessive risk-taking.



Enhancing Sound Regulation:

We pledge to strengthen our regulatory regimes,

prudential oversight, and risk management, and ensure that all financial markets,

products and participants are regulated or subject to oversight, as appropriate to their

circumstances. We will exercise strong oversight over credit rating agencies,

consistent with the agreed and strengthened international code of conduct. We will

also make regulatory regimes more effective over the economic cycle, while ensuring

that regulation is efficient, does not stifle innovation, and encourages expanded trade

in financial products and services. We commit to transparent assessments of our

national regulatory systems.



Promoting Integrity in Financial Markets:

We commit to protect the integrity of

the world’s financial markets by bolstering investor and consumer protection,

avoiding conflicts of interest, preventing illegal market manipulation, fraudulent

activities and abuse, and protecting against illicit finance risks arising from non-

cooperative jurisdictions. We will also promote information sharing, including with

respect to jurisdictions that have yet to commit to international standards with respect

to bank secrecy and transparency.



Reinforcing International Cooperation:

We call upon our national and regional

regulators to formulate their regulations and other measures in a consistent manner.

Regulators should enhance their coordination and cooperation across all segments of

financial markets, including with respect to cross-border capital flows. Regulators

and other relevant authorities as a matter of priority should strengthen cooperation on

crisis prevention, management, and resolution.



Reforming International Financial Institutions:

We are committed to advancing

the reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions so that they can more adequately reflect

changing economic weights in the world economy in order to increase their

legitimacy and effectiveness. In this respect, emerging and developing economies,

including the poorest countries, should have greater voice and representation. The

Financial Stability Forum (FSF) must expand urgently to a broader membership of

emerging economies, and other major standard setting bodies should promptly review

their membership. The IMF, in collaboration with the expanded FSF and other

bodies, should work to better identify vulnerabilities, anticipate potential stresses, and

act swiftly to play a key role in crisis response.

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Tasking of Ministers and Experts

10. We are committed to taking rapid action to implement these principles. We instruct

our Finance Ministers, as coordinated by their 2009 G-20 leadership (Brazil, UK,

Republic of Korea), to initiate processes and a timeline to do so. An initial list of specific

measures is set forth in the attached Action Plan, including high priority actions to be

completed prior to March 31, 2009.

In consultation with other economies and existing bodies, drawing upon the

recommendations of such eminent independent experts as they may appoint, we request

our Finance Ministers to formulate additional recommendations, including in the

following specific areas:

• Mitigating against pro-cyclicality in regulatory policy;

• Reviewing and aligning global accounting standards, particularly for complex

securities in times of stress;

• Strengthening the resilience and transparency of credit derivatives markets and

reducing their systemic risks, including by improving the infrastructure of over-the-

counter markets;

• Reviewing compensation practices as they relate to incentives for risk taking and

innovation;

• Reviewing the mandates, governance, and resource requirements of the IFIs; and

• Defining the scope of systemically important institutions and determining their

appropriate regulation or oversight.

11. In view of the role of the G-20 in financial systems reform, we will meet again by

April 30, 2009, to review the implementation of the principles and decisions agreed

today.

Commitment to an Open Global Economy

12. We recognize that these reforms will only be successful if grounded in a commitment

to free market principles, including the rule of law, respect for private property, open

trade and investment, competitive markets, and efficient, effectively regulated financial

systems. These principles are essential to economic growth and prosperity and have

lifted millions out of poverty, and have significantly raised the global standard of living.

Recognizing the necessity to improve financial sector regulation, we must avoid over-

regulation that would hamper economic growth and exacerbate the contraction of capital

flows, including to developing countries.

13. We underscore the critical importance of rejecting protectionism and not turning

inward in times of financial uncertainty. In this regard, within the next 12 months, we

will refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services,

imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organization (WTO)

inconsistent measures to stimulate exports. Further, we shall strive to reach agreement

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this year on modalities that leads to a successful conclusion to the WTO’s Doha

Development Agenda with an ambitious and balanced outcome. We instruct our Trade

Ministers to achieve this objective and stand ready to assist directly, as necessary. We

also agree that our countries have the largest stake in the global trading system and

therefore each must make the positive contributions necessary to achieve such an

outcome.

14. We are mindful of the impact of the current crisis on developing countries,

particularly the most vulnerable. We reaffirm the importance of the Millennium

Development Goals, the development assistance commitments we have made, and urge

both developed and emerging economies to undertake commitments consistent with their

capacities and roles in the global economy. In this regard, we reaffirm the development

principles agreed at the 2002 United Nations Conference on Financing for Development

in Monterrey, Mexico, which emphasized country ownership and mobilizing all sources

of financing for development.

15. We remain committed to addressing other critical challenges such as energy security

and climate change, food security, the rule of law, and the fight against terrorism, poverty

and disease.

16. As we move forward, we are confident that through continued partnership,

cooperation, and multilateralism, we will overcome the challenges before us and restore

stability and prosperity to the world economy.

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Action Plan to Implement Principles for Reform

This Action Plan sets forth a comprehensive work plan to implement the five agreed

principles for reform. Our finance ministers will work to ensure that the taskings set

forth in this Action Plan are fully and vigorously implemented. They are responsible for

the development and implementation of these recommendations drawing on the ongoing

work of relevant bodies, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an expanded

Financial Stability Forum (FSF), and standard setting bodies.

Strengthening Transparency and Accountability

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• The key global accounting standards bodies should work to enhance guidance for

valuation of securities, also taking into account the valuation of complex, illiquid

products, especially during times of stress.

• Accounting standard setters should significantly advance their work to address

weaknesses in accounting and disclosure standards for off-balance sheet vehicles.

• Regulators and accounting standard setters should enhance the required disclosure of

complex financial instruments by firms to market participants.

• With a view toward promoting financial stability, the governance of the international

accounting standard setting body should be further enhanced, including by

undertaking a review of its membership, in particular in order to ensure transparency,

accountability, and an appropriate relationship between this independent body and the

relevant authorities.

• Private sector bodies that have already developed best practices for private pools of

capital and/or hedge funds should bring forward proposals for a set of unified best

practices. Finance Ministers should assess the adequacy of these proposals, drawing

upon the analysis of regulators, the expanded FSF, and other relevant bodies.

Medium-term actions

• The key global accounting standards bodies should work intensively toward the

objective of creating a single high-quality global standard.

• Regulators, supervisors, and accounting standard setters, as appropriate, should work

with each other and the private sector on an ongoing basis to ensure consistent

application and enforcement of high-quality accounting standards.

• Financial institutions should provide enhanced risk disclosures in their reporting and

disclose all losses on an ongoing basis, consistent with international best practice, as

appropriate. Regulators should work to ensure that a financial institution’ financial

statements include a complete, accurate, and timely picture of the firm’s activities

(including off-balance sheet activities) and are reported on a consistent and regular

basis.

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Enhancing Sound Regulation

Regulatory Regimes

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• The IMF, expanded FSF, and other regulators and bodies should develop

recommendations to mitigate pro-cyclicality, including the review of how valuation

and leverage, bank capital, executive compensation, and provisioning practices may

exacerbate cyclical trends.

Medium-term actions

• To the extent countries or regions have not already done so, each country or region

pledges to review and report on the structure and principles of its regulatory system to

ensure it is compatible with a modern and increasingly globalized financial system.

To this end, all G-20 members commit to undertake a Financial Sector Assessment

Program (FSAP) report and support the transparent assessments of countries’ national

regulatory systems.

• The appropriate bodies should review the differentiated nature of regulation in the

banking, securities, and insurance sectors and provide a report outlining the issue and

making recommendations on needed improvements. A review of the scope of

financial regulation, with a special emphasis on institutions, instruments, and markets

that are currently unregulated, along with ensuring that all systemically-important

institutions are appropriately regulated, should also be undertaken.

• National and regional authorities should review resolution regimes and bankruptcy

laws in light of recent experience to ensure that they permit an orderly wind-down of

large complex cross-border financial institutions.

• Definitions of capital should be harmonized in order to achieve consistent measures

of capital and capital adequacy.

Prudential Oversight

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• Regulators should take steps to ensure that credit rating agencies meet the highest

standards of the international organization of securities regulators and that they avoid

conflicts of interest, provide greater disclosure to investors and to issuers, and

differentiate ratings for complex products. This will help ensure that credit rating

agencies have the right incentives and appropriate oversight to enable them to

perform their important role in providing unbiased information and assessments to

markets.

• The international organization of securities regulators should review credit rating

agencies’ adoption of the standards and mechanisms for monitoring compliance.

• Authorities should ensure that financial institutions maintain adequate capital in

amounts necessary to sustain confidence. International standard setters should set out

strengthened capital requirements for banks’ structured credit and securitization

activities.

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• Supervisors and regulators, building on the imminent launch of central counterparty

services for credit default swaps (CDS) in some countries, should: speed efforts to

reduce the systemic risks of CDS and over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives

transactions; insist that market participants support exchange traded or electronic

trading platforms for CDS contracts; expand OTC derivatives market transparency;

and ensure that the infrastructure for OTC derivatives can support growing volumes.

Medium-term actions

• Credit Ratings Agencies that provide public ratings should be registered.

• Supervisors and central banks should develop robust and internationally consistent

approaches for liquidity supervision of, and central bank liquidity operations for,

cross-border banks.

Risk Management

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• Regulators should develop enhanced guidance to strengthen banks’ risk management

practices, in line with international best practices, and should encourage financial

firms to reexamine their internal controls and implement strengthened policies for

sound risk management.

• Regulators should develop and implement procedures to ensure that financial firms

implement policies to better manage liquidity risk, including by creating strong

liquidity cushions.

• Supervisors should ensure that financial firms develop processes that provide for

timely and comprehensive measurement of risk concentrations and large counterparty

risk positions across products and geographies.

• Firms should reassess their risk management models to guard against stress and report

to supervisors on their efforts.

• The Basel Committee should study the need for and help develop firms’ new stress

testing models, as appropriate.

• Financial institutions should have clear internal incentives to promote stability, and

action needs to be taken, through voluntary effort or regulatory action, to avoid

compensation schemes which reward excessive short-term returns or risk taking.

• Banks should exercise effective risk management and due diligence over structured

products and securitization.

Medium -term actions

• International standard setting bodies, working with a broad range of economies and

other appropriate bodies, should ensure that regulatory policy makers are aware and

able to respond rapidly to evolution and innovation in financial markets and products.

• Authorities should monitor substantial changes in asset prices and their implications

for the macroeconomy and the financial system.

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Promoting Integrity in Financial Markets

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• Our national and regional authorities should work together to enhance regulatory

cooperation between jurisdictions on a regional and international level.

• National and regional authorities should work to promote information sharing about

domestic and cross-border threats to market stability and ensure that national (or

regional, where applicable) legal provisions are adequate to address these threats.

• National and regional authorities should also review business conduct rules to protect

markets and investors, especially against market manipulation and fraud and

strengthen their cross-border cooperation to protect the international financial system

from illicit actors. In case of misconduct, there should be an appropriate sanctions

regime.

Medium -term actions

• National and regional authorities should implement national and international

measures that protect the global financial system from uncooperative and non-

transparent jurisdictions that pose risks of illicit financial activity.

• The Financial Action Task Force should continue its important work against money

laundering and terrorist financing, and we support the efforts of the World Bank - UN

Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative.

• Tax authorities, drawing upon the work of relevant bodies such as the Organization

for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), should continue efforts to

promote tax information exchange. Lack of transparency and a failure to exchange

tax information should be vigorously addressed.

Reinforcing International Cooperation

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• Supervisors should collaborate to establish supervisory colleges for all major cross-

border financial institutions, as part of efforts to strengthen the surveillance of cross-

border firms. Major global banks should meet regularly with their supervisory

college for comprehensive discussions of the firm’s activities and assessment of the

risks it faces.

• Regulators should take all steps necessary to strengthen cross-border crisis

management arrangements, including on cooperation and communication with each

other and with appropriate authorities, and develop comprehensive contact lists and

conduct simulation exercises, as appropriate.

Medium -term actions

• Authorities, drawing especially on the work of regulators, should collect information

on areas where convergence in regulatory practices such as accounting standards,

auditing, and deposit insurance is making progress, is in need of accelerated progress,

or where there may be potential for progress.

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• Authorities should ensure that temporary measures to restore stability and confidence

have minimal distortions and are unwound in a timely, well-sequenced and

coordinated manner.

Reforming International Financial Institutions

Immediate Actions by March 31, 2009

• The FSF should expand to a broader membership of emerging economies.

• The IMF, with its focus on surveillance, and the expanded FSF, with its focus on

standard setting, should strengthen their collaboration, enhancing efforts to better

integrate regulatory and supervisory responses into the macro-prudential policy

framework and conduct early warning exercises.

• The IMF, given its universal membership and core macro-financial expertise, should,

in close coordination with the FSF and others, take a leading role in drawing lessons

from the current crisis, consistent with its mandate.

• We should review the adequacy of the resources of the IMF, the World Bank Group

and other multilateral development banks and stand ready to increase them where

necessary. The IFIs should also continue to review and adapt their lending

instruments to adequately meet their members’ needs and revise their lending role in

the light of the ongoing financial crisis.

• We should explore ways to restore emerging and developing countries’ access to

credit and resume private capital flows which are critical for sustainable growth and

development, including ongoing infrastructure investment.

• In cases where severe market disruptions have limited access to the necessary

financing for counter-cyclical fiscal policies, multilateral development banks must

ensure arrangements are in place to support, as needed, those countries with a good

track record and sound policies.

Medium -term actions

• We underscored that the Bretton Woods Institutions must be comprehensively

reformed so that they can more adequately reflect changing economic weights in the

world economy and be more responsive to future challenges. Emerging and

developing economies should have greater voice and representation in these

institutions.

• The IMF should conduct vigorous and even-handed surveillance reviews of all

countries, as well as giving greater attention to their financial sectors and better

integrating the reviews with the joint IMF/World Bank financial sector assessment

programs. On this basis, the role of the IMF in providing macro-financial policy

advice would be strengthened.

• Advanced economies, the IMF, and other international organizations should provide

capacity-building programs for emerging market economies and developing countries

on the formulation and the implementation of new major regulations, consistent with

international standards.



Two disparaging views of the G-20's perspective.


Alexy Kudrin, FM Russia


Alistair Darling Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer



Angel Gurria, Sec Gen'l OECD,org. for econ. cooperation & dev.


Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and US President Barak Obama




Ben Bernanke , US Fed. Reserve Chair


Protestors,blocking the road to The Fairmont Hotel in Scotland
being arrested.


The police used saws to clear the road.


Carla Bruni-Sarkosky France's First Lady , wife of Nicolas Sarkozy


Christine Lagarde, Domonique Strauss-Khan IMF & Mervin King Gov, Bank of England







Dmitry Medvedev Russia's President & Barak Obama


Dominique Strauss-Kahn IMF Pres

Fairmont Hotel, Saint Andrews , Scotland

G20 Finance Ministers & Central Bankers 2009



G20 picketers

G20 protestor being arrested



G20 Protets, Saint Andrews Scotland 11,7,09




Guido Mantega Brazil

Guido Mantega Brazil & Amado Boudou Argentina FM's


Hu Jintao President of China & President Barak Obama


Jean-Claude Trichet EBC & Guilio Tremonti Ital FM

Joaquin Alumnia, EU Commisioner for Econ Affairs


PM Gordon Brown

PM Gordon Brown, Dane PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen


Pranab Mukherjee INDIA & Zhou Xiachuan CHINA central banker



Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Indonesia's FM

Timothy Geithner Sec of Treasury & Anders Borg M of F Sweden

Toon Jeung-Hyun, South Korean FM


Wayne Swan, Australia's FM


Wolfgang Schaeuble,Timothy Geithner,Alistar Darling ,Christine Lagard, Sri Mulyani Indarwati

World Bank Pres, Robert Zoellick


Xie Xuren Chinese Minister of Finance


Yoon Jeung-Hyun SK and Korn Chatikavanij Thai FM's



Yoshihiko Noda Japan's FM



Youssef Boutros Ghali IMF Chairman