Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) are to discuss banking reform and tax evasion at a two-day meeting that begins Friday outside London, British Chancellor George Osborne said.
The "informal" talks in Buckinghamshire are the first time the
ministers, together with their central bank chiefs, have met like
this for three years. In 2009, the G7 finance chiefs decided to end
their regular gatherings, to be replaced by Group of 20 meetings.
Since then, the world's seven richest long-industrialized
countries have instead met on the sidelines of G20 and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings.
Osborne said Britain as chair wanted "a forum for the advanced
economies to come together for informal discussions with less focus
on lengthy, pre-prepared communiques and read-out statements."
The G20 - which includes emerging economic heavyweights, such as
Brazil, India and China - was "rightly the primary economic forum for
setting the global rules of the game," the chancellor said.
"But the G7 still represents around half of the world's economy
and constitutes major economic firepower," he said. "We can together
show the political will to nurture global economic recovery."
Officials from participating countries said the meeting would be
an opportunity to discuss more controversial topics that are less
easy to discuss openly in the G20 and would mean the G7 could take a
united position at the meeting of G20 finance ministers in July.
Topics were also to include fixing flaws in the international
banking system in which some institutions are "too big to fail" and
ways to break down global trade barriers, Osborne said.
The meeting is taking place three weeks after G20 and IMF meetings
in Washington. It provides an opportunity for finance ministers to
meet their new counterparts from the United States and Italy, Jacob
Lew and Fabrizio Saccomanni.
The G7 is made up of Britain, the United States, Japan, France,
Germany, Italy and Canada. No communique was to be issued after the
meeting.
